It was mid-April: a sunny afternoon. A flood of golden light, borne on gusts of sweet, chilly air, poured through the open windows of the Castle into a high-vaulted, massively furnished bedroom, hung with tapestries, and strewn with dry rushes. A heavy silence that was less a thing of the moment than a part of the general atmosphere hovered about the room; and it was not lessened by the unceasing murmur of ocean waves breaking upon the face of the cliff on which the Castle stood. This sound held in it a note of unutterable melancholy. Indeed, despite the sunlight, the sparkle of the waves, and the fragrance of the fresh spring air, this whole building, the culminating point of a long slope of landscape, seemed wrapped in an atmosphere of loneliness, of sadness, of lifelessness, that found full expression in the attitude of the black-robed woman who knelt alone in the high-vaulted bedroom.

Eleanore was kneeling at her priedieu. Madame Eleanore knelt at her priedieu, and did not pray. Nay, the great grief, the unvoiced bitterness in her heart, killed prayer. For, henceforth, there was one near and unbearably dear to her who must be praying for evermore. And it was this thought and the vista of her future lonely years that denied her, even as she knelt, the consolation of religion.

To the still solitude of her bedchamber, and always to the foot of her crucifix, the chatelaine of Le CrÉpuscule was accustomed to bring her griefs; and there had been many griefs and some very bitter ones in the thirty-four years that she had reigned as mistress over the Castle. But this last was one that, trained though she was in the ways of sorrow, defied all comfort, denied the right of consolation, and forbade even the relief of an appeal to the All-merciful. Laure, her daughter, the star of her solitude, the youth and the joy of her life, the object of all the blind devotion of which her mother-soul was capable, had this morning entered upon her novitiate at the convent of the Virgins of the Magdalen. Although Madame Eleanore’s family was celebrated for its piety, though many a generation of Lavals and CrÉpuscules had rendered a daughter to the eternal worship of God, there were still no records left in either family of a great mother-grief when the daughter left her home. But madame, Laval as she was, CrÉpuscule as she had learned to be, could not find it in her heart to praise God for the loss of her child.

Once again, after many years, years that she could look back upon now as filled with broad content, she was alone. Not since, many, many years ago, she had come to the Castle as a girl-bride, wife of a military lord, had such utter desolation held her in its bonds,—such desolation as, after the coming of her two children, she had thought never to feel again. In the days after the Seigneur’s first early departure for Rennes, without her, she had felt as now. It came back very vividly to her memory, how he had ridden away for the capital, the city of war, of arms, of glittering shield and piercing lance, of tourney and laughter and song; how she had longed in silence to ride thither at his side; how she had wept when he was really gone; how she had watched bitterly, day after day, for his return up the steep road that came out of the forest on the edge of the sand-downs below. Clearly indeed did her youth return to Eleanore as she knelt here, in the barred sunlight, alone with her unheeding crucifix. And intertwined with this memory was the new sense of blinding sorrow, the loss of Laure.

The reality, as it came to her, seemed even now vague and impossible. Laure, her girl, her strong, wild, adventurous, high-hearted, fearless girl, to become a nun! Laure, of whom, in her own way, Eleanore had been accustomed to think as she thought of the great white gulls that veered, through sunlight and storm, on straight-stretched pinions, along the rocky coast, as a creature of light, of air, above all of perfect, indestructible freedom! This, her Laure, to become a nun! Spite of what the Bishop of St. Nazaire had so earnestly told her, how, in all strong natures, there are strong antitheses and quiet, governing depths that no outer turbulence can disclose, Eleanore rebelled at the disposal that had been made of this nature. She knew herself too well to believe that her daughter could renounce all the joys of youth and of life without a single after-pang.

After this early mother-thought for the child’s state, Eleanore’s self-grief returned again with redoubled force; and her brain conjured up a vision of the future,—that great, shadowy future, that wrapped her heart around in a cold and deadening despair.

The April wind blew higher through the room, catching the tapestry curtains of the immense bed and waving them about like blue banners. The bars of sunlight mellowed and broadened over the shrunken rushes and the smooth stones of the floor. The surf boomed louder as the tide advanced. And Eleanore, still upon her knees, rocked her body in her helpless rebellion, and found it in her heart to question the righteous wisdom of her God. She did not, however, come quite to this; for which, afterwards, she found it expedient to give thanks to the same deity. Her solitude was unexpectedly broken. There came a knock upon the door, which immediately afterwards opened, and Gerault, her son, entered the room.

This fourth Seigneur of Le CrÉpuscule, a dark-browed, lean, and rather handsome fellow, clad in half armor and carrying on his wrist a falcon, jessed and belled, was the first of Eleanore’s two children. She reverenced him as his father’s successor; she held affection for him because she had borne him; and she respected him and his wishes because he was a man that commanded respect. But perhaps it was this very respect, which had in it something of distance, that killed in her the overwhelming love which she had always felt for his sister Laure, her youngest and beloved.

Gerault, seeing his mother’s attitude, stopped short in the doorway. “Madame, I crave pardon! I had not known you were at prayer,” he said.

Eleanore rose from her knees a little hastily. “Nay, Gerault, I was not at prayer. ’Tis an old custom of mine to meditate in that place. Enter thou and sit with me for a little.”

Gerault bowed silently and accepted her invitation by seating himself near one of the windows on a wooden settle. His silence seemed to demand speech from his mother. But Eleanore, once on her feet, had begun slowly to pace the floor of her room, at the same time losing herself again in her own thoughts.

Without speaking and without any discomfort at the continued silence, Gerault watched his mother—contemplated her, rather—as she walked. Often he had felt a pride—a pride that suggested patronage—in that walk of madame’s. Never, in any woman, had he seen such a carriage, such conscious poise, such dignity, such command. In his heart her son, somewhat given to irreverent observation and analysis of those about him, had named her the “Quiet-Browed,” and the very fact that he could have seen somewhat below the surface and yet named her thus, was evidence enough of her powers of self-control. It was he who finally broke the silence between them.

“Well, madame, the change in our house hath taken place. Laure’s new life is safely begun; and she hath given what she could to the honor of our race. Now that it is done, I return to Rennes, to the side of my Lord Duke.”

Eleanore made no pause in her walk, nor did she betray by the slightest gesture her feeling at the announcement. Too many times before had she experienced this same sensation. After a few seconds she asked quietly: “When do you go?”

In spite of her self-control, her voice had been a strain off the key, and now Gerault looked at her keenly, asking: “There is a reason why I should not ride to Rennes? I have not thy permission to go?”

Eleanore paused in her walk to turn and look at him. There was just a suggestion of scorn in her attitude. “Reason! Permission! Was ever a reason why a CrÉpuscule might not fare forth to Rennes, or one that asked permission of a woman ere he went?”

Again Gerault looked at her, this time in that dignified disapproval that man uses to cover an unlooked-for mortification. And the Seigneur was decidedly lofty as he said: “I have given thee pain, madame, though of how, or wherefore, I am wofully ignorant.”

“Pain, Gerault? Pain?” Eleanore repressed herself again and immediately resumed her walk. In a few seconds the calm, quiet dignity returned, her mask was replaced, every vestige of her feeling hidden, and she had become once more the chÂtelaine of unvoiced loneliness. Then she went on speaking: “Pain, Gerault? Surely not. Know I not enough of Rennes that I should not be well content to have thee in that lordly place, with thy rightful companions, men of thy blood? Shall I not send thee gayly forth again to that trysting-place of knightly arms?”

“And yet, madame, I did but now surprise in thy face a look of sorrow, of some unhappiness, that is new to it.”

“Well, even so?”

“Ah, yes! It is Laure’s departure. Yet that must not be too much mourned. Laure’s wild ways had come to be a source of uneasiness to both of us at times. ’Tis true that there is lost an alliance that might have brought much honor to Le CrÉpuscule. By the favor of my Lord Duke, Laure might have wed with Grantmesnil, Senlis, Angers itself, perhaps; and there was ever Laval.—Yet—”

He paused musingly, not seeing the look that had come back into the face of madame. Only when she stopped again and turned to him did he utter a soft exclamation, half surprise and half helpless apology. But Eleanore, smiling at him sadly, began, in that voice that had long been tuned to the stillness of the Castle: “If I could but make thee understand, Gerault! If I could make thee look upon my hours of loneliness here—and see—Gerault, it is not a matter of alliance, or of honor, or of dishonor, with Laure. It is that she was my child, my daughter, my companion—how adored!—here, in this—this great Castle of Twilight. Neither thou nor any man can know what our lives are.—But think, Gerault—think of me and of the Castle after thou art gone. What is there for me here? The tasks that I invent to fill the hours are useless to deaden thought. They are not changed from the occupations of thirty years ago. Nor, methinks, have women known aught else than spinning, weaving, sewing, spinning again, since the days of the earliest kings,—the Kings of Jerusalem.—And day after day through the long years I dwell here in this barren spot—dependent on others for what happiness I am to get in my life. And now—now the Church, in which always my hope of another, better life hath lain, taketh my child from me. Let then the Church give me something in place of her! Let the Church pay back something of its debt. And thou also, my son,—give me some help to live through the unending days of thy absence in Rennes.”

“I, madame!—the Church!—What art thou saying?”

“Hast thou not heard me?”

“I have heard. But what shall I do, my mother?”

“Listen, Gerault. The Church hath taken a daughter from me. Thou, by the aid of the Church, canst give me another. Gerault, thou must marry. Marry, my son. Bring thy wife home to me!”

Gerault sprang to his feet with an expression on his face that his mother had never before called there. For a moment he looked at her, his eyes saying what his lips would not. Then, gradually, the fire in his face died down, and he reseated himself slowly on the settle, while the bird on his wrist, a wild hagard, fluttered its wings, and dug its talons painfully into the knight’s flesh.

“Marry!” said Gerault, at length, in a voice that sounded strange to his own ears. “Marry! Hast thou forgotten?”

“Nay, I have not forgotten; nor has anyone in the Castle. But thou, Gerault, must forget. It is now five years since, and thou art more than come to man’s estate. Even then thou wast not young.—Nay, Gerault, I do not forget that cruel thing. Yet we must all go.—And ere I die I must see thee wed. ’Tis not only for myself, child. It is for the house, and the line of CrÉpuscule. Shall it be lost in four generations?”

Frowning, Gerault rose. “Well, madame, not as yet have I seen in Brittany the maid that I would wed, barring always—” He shook himself to dissipate the memory that was on him. “To-morrow I and Courtoise ride forth to Rennes. Let me now leave thee once more to thy meditations.”

Gerault went to the door, opened it, turned to look once at his mother, whose face he could not see, and then, with an audible sigh, went quietly away. Each was ignorant of the other’s feelings. As Eleanore moved over toward the open windows that looked off upon the sea, her eyes, tear-blinded, saw nothing of the broad plain of blue and sparkling gold that stretched infinitely away before her. Nor did she dream of the spirit of reawakened bitterness and desolation that her words had conjured up in Gerault’s heart. But the Seigneur’s calm and unruffled expression concealed a very storm of reawakened misery as he descended the great stone staircase of the Castle, passed through the empty lower hall, and so out into the courtyard.

This courtyard was always the liveliest spot about the chateau. Le CrÉpuscule itself was very large, and its adjacent buildings were on a corresponding scale. Like all the feudal fortress-castles of its time, it was almost a little city in itself. It dated from the year 1203, and had been built by the first lord of the name, Bernard, a left-handed scion of Coucy, who had been called CrÉpuscule from his colors, two contrasting shades of gray. Since his time, each of its lords had added to its strength or its convenience, till now, in the year 1380, it was the strongest chateau on the South Breton coast. One side was built on the very edge of an immense cliff against which the Atlantic surf had beaten unceasingly through the ages. The other three sides were well protected, first by a heavy wall that surrounded the whole courtyard with its various buildings, beyond which came a broad strip of garden land and pasturage, bounded on the far side by the second, or lower wall, and a dry moat. The keep was of a size proportionate to the Castle; and the number of men-at-arms that were kept in it taxed the coffers of the rather meagre estate to the utmost for food and pay.

When Gerault entered the courtyard a girl stood drawing water from the round, stone well. Two or three henchmen lolled in the doorway of the keep, chaffing a peasant who had come up the hill from one of the manor farms carrying eggs in a big basket. Just outside the stables, which occupied the whole east side of the courtyard, a boy stood rubbing down a sleek, white palfrey. All of these people respectfully saluted their lord, who returned them rather a curt recognition as he passed round the west tower on his way to a little narrow building just in front of the north gate, in which his falcons were housed through the winter. Gerault had a great passion for hawking, and his birds were always objects of solicitude with him. He and Courtoise, his squire, were accustomed to spend much time together in this little building, and in the open-air falconry on the terrace outside the north gate, where young birds or newly captured ones were trained.

Just now Gerault stood in the doorway of the falcon-house, looking around him for Courtoise, whom he had thought to find within. He was speaking to the bird on his wrist, his mind still occupied with the recent talk with his mother, when, through the gate, came a burst of laughter and song, and he raised his eyes to see a giddy company swaying toward him in the measure of a “carole”^[1] led by Courtoise and Laure’s foster-sister, Alixe la Rieuse. Moving a little out of their way he stood and watched the group go by,—the demoiselles and the squires of the Castle household, retained by his mother as company for herself, also to be trained in etiquette according to their several stations. And a pretty enough company of youth and gayety they were: Berthe, Yseult, Isabelle, Viviane, daughters all of noble houses; with Roland of St. Bertaux, Louis of Florence, Robert Meloc, and Guy d’Armenonville, called “le TrouvÉ.” But, of them all, Alixe, surnamed the Laughing One, was the brightest of eye, the warmest of color, and the lightest of foot.

As they went by, Gerault signalled to his squire, Courtoise, and the young fellow would have disengaged himself immediately from his companions, but that Alixe suddenly broke her step, dropped the hand of Robert Meloc, who was behind her, and leaving the company, ran to Gerault’s side, dragging Courtoise with her. The dance ceased while the young people stood still, staring at their erstwhile leaders. Alixe, however, impatiently motioned them on.

“Go back to the Castle with your ‘Roi qui ne ment pas.’^[2] I will come soon.”

Obedient to her command, the little company resumed their quaint song, and, with steps that lagged a little, passed into the Castle, leaving their arbitrary leader behind them, with the Seigneur and his squire.

Gerault was silent till the young people had gone. Then he turned to Alixe, but, before he had time to speak, she broke in hastily:

“Let me go with you to the falcons. You must see Bec-Hardi sit upon my wrist, and attack his pÂt on the rope.”

“Diable!—Bec-Hardi!—Thou hast a genius with the birds, Alixe. The hagard will not move for me.” Gerault was all attention to her now.

Alixe did not answer his praise, but started quickly forward toward the gate through which she had just come, beyond which was the strip of turf where the falcons lived in summer. Gerault and Courtoise followed her at a slower pace, and she caught some disjointed words spoken by the Seigneur behind her:—“Rennes”—“to-morrow”—“horses.”

As these came to her ears, Alixe’s steps grew laggard, for she had put the thoughts together, and instantly her mood changed from golden irresponsibility to dull and dreary melancholy. For a long time she had concealed in her heart the deep sorrow that she felt at the prospective loss of her life-playmate, Laure, now actually gone, and gone forever. She had resigned herself to the thought of solitary adventures on moor and cliff, and lonely sails on the breezy, treacherous bay, in a more than treacherous boat,—such wild and risky amusements as she and the daughter of Le CrÉpuscule had loved to indulge together. Laure was gone, and she had kept herself from tears. But now—now, at these words of Gerault’s, there suddenly rose before her a vivid picture of life in the Castle without either brother or sister. Toward Gerault she had no such feeling as that which she had held for Laure. He was a man to her, and the fact made a vast difference. At times she entertained for him a violent enthusiasm; at other times she treated him with infinite scorn. But till now she had never confessed, even to herself, how much interest he had added to the monotonous Castle life. Considering her wayward nature, it was certainly anomalous that, in her first rush of displeasure, there came to her the thought of Eleanore, the mother now doubly bereft. And for madame she felt a sympathy that was entirely new.

Gerault and his squire reached the outdoor falconry before Alixe, whom they perceived to have fallen into one of her sudden reveries. Accustomed to her rapid changes of mood, neither man took much heed of her slow steps and bent head. And when she reached the falconry and saw the birds, her interest in them brought over her again a wave of animation.

The outdoor falconry was a long strip of turf that lay between the flower-terrace and the kitchen-garden. Into this turf had been driven about twenty heavy stakes, to which were nailed wooden cross-pieces. On nearly every one of these a falcon perched, and a strong cord, tied about one leg, fastened each to his own stake. At sight of their master, whom they knew perfectly well, all the birds set up a peculiar, harsh cry, at the same time eagerly flapping their wings, appealing, as best they could, for an hour or two of freedom. Alixe ran at once down to the end of the second row of stakes, where sat a half-grown bird, striking viciously at his perch with his iron beak.

Courtoise and Gerault ceased their conversation when Alixe went up to this bird and addressed it in a curious jargon of Latin and Breton-French. Courtoise betrayed an admiring interest when she stooped to lay her hand on the bird’s feathers; and Gerault called involuntarily,—

“Have a care, Alixe!”

The girl, however, had her way with the creature. At sound of her voice it became attentive. At the touch of her hand it half raised its wings, the motion indicating expectant delight. In a moment more it had hopped upon the girl’s wrist, and sat there, swaying and preening contentedly.

“Sang Dieu, Alixe, thou hast done that well! Thou sayest he will also attack the pÂt from your hand?”

Alixe merely nodded. To all appearances, she was wholly engrossed with the bird, which she continued to handle. Gerault and Courtoise had come close to her side, though the falcon betrayed its displeasure at their approach. All three of them had been silent for some seconds, when Alixe turned her green eyes upon the Seigneur, and, looking at him with a glance that carried discomfort with it, said in a very precise and cutting tone:

“So you leave Le CrÉpuscule to-morrow, Gerault? And for how long?”

“That I cannot tell,” answered Gerault, exhibiting no annoyance. “For as long a time as Duke Jean will accept my services.”

“Ah! then there will be fighting. I had not heard of a war. Tell me of it.”

Gerault became suddenly embarrassed and correspondingly displeased. “Of what import can it be to you, a woman, whether there is war or peace?” he inquired.

“Oh, there is great import.”

“Prithee, what may it be?”

“This: that an there were indeed a war thou mightest be forgiven thy great selfishness in going forth to pleasure, leaving thy mother here in her loneliness and sorrow; whereas—”

“Silence, Alixe! Thine insolence merits the whip,” cried Courtoise.

“Peace, boy!” said Gerault, shortly, and forthwith turned again to the demoiselle. “And is not my mother long accustomed to this life, and well content with it? Is she not lady of a great castle, mistress of enviable estates? Hath she not a position to be proud of? From her speech and thine one might think—” he snapped his fingers impatiently.—“Come you with me, Alixe. Let us walk here together on the turf, while I say to you certain things. Thou, Courtoise, return to the Castle if thou wilt.”

The squire, however, chose to remain in the field, and stood leaning against the wall, watching the falcons at his feet, and whistling under his breath for his own amusement. Alixe replaced Bec-Hardi, screaming angrily and flapping its wings, and moved off beside Gerault, her long red houppelande and mantle trailing upon the grass round her feet, the veil from her filet flowing behind her nearly to the ground. Long time these two, Lord of Le CrÉpuscule and his almost sister, walked together in the sunny light of the late afternoon. And long Courtoise the squire watched them as they went. Although Gerault had said, somewhat in ire, that he had a matter to speak of with her, it was Alixe that talked the most, and from his manner it could be seen that Gerault was fallen very much under the influence of her peculiar insistence. What it was they spoke of, Courtoise could only guess—and fear. For, though he might hold in his heart some sympathy with madame in her loneliness, yet the squire was a man, and young; and his young thoughts drew with delight the picture of Rennes’ gayeties in the summer-time, when no war was toward and the court alive with merriment. Indeed, it was not very wonderful that he prayed to be off on the morrow; but the occasional glimpse that he got of his lord’s face carried doubt into his heart.

As the squire stood there by the wall, musing, Madame Eleanore herself came out of the courtyard into the field. Her rosary hung from her waist, and in her hand was a little volume of Latin prayers. In some way, of which she was probably unconscious, the placid manner of her as she came into the field for her evening walk caused Courtoise’s idle dreams of gayety to vanish away, and the present, so tinged with the spirit of sweet melancholy, to become the only reality. The squire at once advanced toward his lady, while, ere he reached her, Alixe and Gerault had halted at her side.

“Indeed, my mother, thou art well come hither at this time. Prithee join us in our walk. For some time past Alixe and I have been speaking of thee. See, the air is sweet, for it comes off the fields to-night.”

“Indeed, ’tis sweet—sweeter than summer,” said Eleanore, smiling as she joined the twain. “But mayhap I shall break your pleasure by coming with you, for you are gay and young, and I—”

They moved on without having noticed him, and Courtoise lost the rest of Eleanore’s speech. But the squire remained in the field, watching the three move back and forth in the deepening dusk. When they came toward him for the last time, and passed through the gate in the north wall, returning to the Castle, all three faces were as calm as madame’s, and Courtoise permitted himself only one sigh for the lost summer at Rennes.

Oddly enough, the squire’s regrets proved to be premature, for immediately after the evening meal he was summoned by Gerault to the Seigneur’s room, to make ready for the journey. Gerault did not deign to inform his squire of the substance of his talk in the fields, but from the tranquillity of his manner Courtoise could not but perceive that everything had gone well. It was a late hour when all the necessary preparations had been made; and then the two, lord and squire, went together to the chapel and were there confessed by Anselm, the steward-priest; after which they bade each other a good-night, and sought their rest.

By sunrise, next morning, the whole Castle had assembled at the drawbridge, to say God-speed to their departing lord. Madame Eleanore, in bliault, houppelande, mantle, and coif all of black and white, held Gerault’s stirrup-cup, and smiled as she spoke with him. There was a chorus of chattering demoiselles and a boyish clattering of swords and little armor-pieces from the young squires, as Gerault buckled on his shield, whereon was wrought the motto and device of CrÉpuscule. Courtoise had already fastened to his lord the golden spurs. And now the two were mounted and ready, Gerault with lance in rest and white reins gathered on his horse’s neck; Courtoise, brimming with delight, now and then giving his steed a heel in flank that caused him to rear and curvet with graceful spirit. For the last time Gerault bent to his mother’s lips, and for the last time he looked vainly over the company for a glimpse of Alixe, his recent mentor. Finally his spurs went home. The drawbridge was down before him, the portcullis raised. Amid a chorus of farewell cries, he and Courtoise swept away together, over the bridge and down the long, gentle hill, and out upon the Rennes road, which, at some twelve miles from Le CrÉpuscule, passed the priory-convent of Les Vierges de la Madeleine.

When the twain were gone, and the group prepared to disperse,—the squires-at-arms to their sword-practice under the captain of the keep, the sighing demoiselles to their long morning of weaving and embroidery,—Alixe suddenly appeared from the watch-tower close at hand, inquiring for Madame Eleanore.

“Methinks she hath retreated to her room, to say her prayers for the Seigneur’s safe journey,” Berthe told her. And Alixe, with a nod of thanks, ran to the Castle, and ascended to madame’s room.

The door was open, for madame was not at prayer. She stood at the open window, looking out upon the sea. Alixe could not see her face, but from the line of her shoulders she read much of her lady’s heart.

“Madame,” she said, in a half-whisper.

Eleanore turned quickly. “Alixe!”

“Madame Eleanore—mother—”

A terrible sob broke from the older woman’s throat, and suddenly she fell upon her knees beside a wooden settle, and, burying her face in her hands, finally gave way to her desolation. Alixe, who had opened her heart, now comforted her as best she could, soothing her, caressing her, whispering to her in a magnetic, gentle voice, till madame’s grief had been nearly washed away. Then the young girl said, softly, in her ear:

“Think, madame! ’tis now but eleven days till thou mayest ride out to Laure at the priory. And there thou canst talk with her alone, and for as long as thou wilt. Also, when her novitiate is at an end, she may come here to thee, once in a fortnight, for so the Mother-prioress hath said.”

Eleanore held Alixe’s hand close to her breast, and while she stroked it, a little convulsively, she said, with returning self-control: “I thank thee—I thank thee—Alixe, for thy good comfort.” Then, in a different tone, she added, with a little sigh: “Eleven days—eleven ages—how many others have I still to spend—alone?”