As a last resource, of course, such a step would be justifiable, but not until at least overt outrages have been attempted.

Now I will call Lady Margaret in." The young girl entered with an air of frank gladness, but was startled at the alteration which had taken place in her former playfellow, and paused and looked at the abbess, as if inquiring whether this could be really the Cuthbert she had known.

Lady Margaret was fifteen in years; but she looked much younger.

The quiet seclusion in which she had lived in the convent had kept her from approaching that maturity which as an earl's daughter, brought up in the stir and bustle of a castle, she would doubtless have attained.
"This is indeed Sir Cuthbert," the abbess said, "your old playfellow, and the husband destined for you by your father and by the will of the king." Struck with a new timidity, the girl advanced, and, according to the custom of the times, held up her cheek to be kissed.

Cuthbert was almost as timid as herself.
"I feel, Lady Margaret," he said, "a deep sense of my own unworthiness of the kindness and honor which the dear lord your father bestowed upon me; and were it not that many dangers threaten, and that it were difficult under the circumstances to find one more worthy of you, I would gladly resign you into the hands of such a one were it for your happiness.