"God, let me perish, but keep him what he is!"
Shall any one say that such true prayers are not heard, because they
are spoken by lips that have sinned? If not, God is not good, nor did
Christ die to save men.
The daughter of princes, the wife of two kings, as she was to be, and
the mother of two kings, and of many more in line after them, she drew
down her veil that none might see her face under the dim lights, and
she went out thence, very lonely and sad, into the streets of
Jerusalem.
At midnight came a priest of the church to trim the lights at the tomb;
yet the three did not move, and he prayed awhile and went away. But
when the watchmen cried the dawning, and their voices came faintly in
by the doorway, floating through the dark church, Gilbert rose to his
feet, and Dunstan with him, and they took their arms with them, and
went away, leaving the Lady Anne the last of them all, her white hands
still clasping the iron bars, her sad black eyes still turned to
heaven.
Faint streaks were in the eastern sky, but it was still almost dark as
the two men turned to the left to follow the way by which they had
come. Three steps from the door, Dunstan stumbled against something
neither hard nor soft, and in many fights he had learned what that
thing was.
"There is a dead man here," he said, and Gilbert had stopped also.
They stooped down, trying to see, and Dunstan felt along the body,
touching the mantle, till he found something sharp, which was the point
of a dagger out of its sheath.
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