She looked at him a moment and then turned away with a weary little
sigh of discontent.

"Was it without conviction that you took the Cross from my hands to-
day?" asked Bernard, sadly.

"It was in the hope of conviction."

Bernard understood. Before him, within reach of his hand, that great
problem was present which, of all others, Paganism most easily and
clearly solved, but with which Christianity grapples at a disadvantage,
finding its foothold narrow, and its danger constant and great. It is
the problem of the conversion of great and vital natures, brave, gifted
and sure of self, to the condition of the humble and poor in spirit. It
is easy to convince the cripple that peace is among the virtues; the
sick man and the weak are soon persuaded that the world is a sensuous
illusion of Satan, in which the pure and perfect have no part nor
share; it is another, a greater and a harder matter, to prove the
strong man a sinner by his strength, and to make woman's passion
ridiculous in comparison of heaven. The clear flame of the spirit burns
ill under the breath of this dying body, and for the fleeting touch of
a loving hand the majesty of God is darkened in a man's heart.

Bernard saw before him the incarnate strength and youth and beauty of
her from whom a line of kings was to descend, and in whom were all the
greatest and least qualities, virtues and failings of her unborn
children--the Lion Heart of Richard, the heartless selfishness of John,
the second Edward's grasping hold, Henry the Third's broad justice and
wisdom; the doubt of one, the decision of another, the passions of them