Her couch was unpressed.

Her window stood open towards the south.

A candle still glimmered upon a little altar in an angle of the wall.

She had been kneeling all night before the image of the Virgin, with her lips upon the feet of her who also was a woman, and who by treachery had lost a son.
"I would have your permission to depart, my Lady Countess," said Sholto, bowing his head upon his breast that he might not intrude upon her eyes of grief; "the castle is safe, and I can be well spared.

By God's grace I shall not return till I bring either the maids themselves or settled news of them.