their deed"

--and never a thought of their jealousy had entered her mind. Both were
beautiful--

". . . Each a queen
By virtue of her brow and breast;
Not needing to be crowned, I mean,
As I do. E'en when I was dressed,
Had either of them spoke, instead
Of glancing sideways with still head!

But no: they let me laugh and sing
My birthday-song quite through . . ."

and so, all trust and gaiety, she had gone down arm-in-arm with them,
and taken her state on the "foolish throne," while everybody applauded
her. Then had come the moment when Gauthier stalked forth; and from the
older mind, now pondering on that infamy, a flash of bitter scorn darts
forth--

"Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it . . ."

for with sad experience--"knowledge of the world"--to aid her, she can
see that the whole must have been pre-concerted--

"And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!"

* * * * *

Her trust in the swiftly emerging champion and lover is comprehensible
to us of a later day--that, and the joy she feels in watching him
impatiently submit to be armed. Even so might one of us watch and listen
to and keep for ever in memory the stamp of the foot, the sound of the
"ringing gauntlets"--reproduced as that must be for modern maids in some
less heartening music! But, as the tale proceeds, we lose our sense of
sisterhood; we realise that this girl belongs to a different age. When
Gauthier's breast is torn open, when he is dragged to her feet to die,
she knows not any shrinking nor compassion--can apprehend each word in
the dialogue between slayer and slain--can, over the bleeding body,
receive the avowal of his love who but now has killed his fellow-man
like a dog--and, gathered to Gismond's breast, can, unmoved by all
repulsion, feel herself smeared by the dripping sword that hangs beside
him. . . . All this we women of a later day have "resigned"--and I know
not if that word be the right one or the wrong; so many lessons have we
conned since Gismond fought for a slandered maiden. We have learned that
lies refute themselves, that "things come right in the end," that human
life is sacred, that a woman's chastity may be sacred too, but is not
her most inestimable possession--and, if it were, should be "able to
take care