he Almighty think we can
forget that? I was ever sound and strong. When I was twenty I killed two
men with my own sword at a blow; when I was thirty, to serve the King
I rode a hundred and forty miles in one day--from Paris to Dracourt
it was. We d'Avranches have been men of power always. We fought
for Christ's sepulchre in the Holy Land, and three bishops and two
archbishops have gone from us to speak God's cause to the world. And my
wife, she came of the purest stock of Aquitaine, and she was constant,
in her prayers. What discourtesy was it then, for God, who hath been
served well by us, to serve me in return with such mockery: to send me a
bloodless zany, whom his wife left ere the wedding meats were cold."

His foot tapped the floor in anger, his eyes wandered restlessly out
over the green expanse. Suddenly a dove perched upon the window-sill
before him. His quick, shifting gaze settled on it and stayed, softening
and quieting.

After a slight pause, he turned to Philip and spoke in a still lower
tone. "Last night in the chapel I spake to God and I said: 'Lord God,
let there be fair speech between us. Wherefore hast Thou nailed me like
a malefactor to the tree? Why didst Thou send me a fool to lead our
house, and afterwards a lad as fine and strong as Absalom, and then lay
him low like a wisp of corn in the wind, leaving me wifeless--with a
prince to follow me, the by-word of men, the scorn of women--and of the
Vaufontaines?"'

He paused again, and his eyes seemed to pierce Philip's, as though he
would read if each word was burning its way into his brain.

"As I stood there alone, a voice spoke to me as plainly as now I speak
to you, and it said: 'Have done with railing. That which was the elder's
shall be given to the younger. The tree hath grown crabbed and old, it
beareth no longer. Behold the young sapling by thy door--I have planted
it there. The seed is the seed of the old tree. Cherish it, lest a
grafted tree flourish in thy house.'".... His words rose triumphantly.
"Yes, yes, I heard it with my own ears, the Voice. The crabbed tree,
that is the main line, dying in me; the grafted tree is the Vaufontaine,
the interloper and the mongrel; and the sapling from the same seed as
the crabbed old tree"--he reached out as though to clutch Philip's arm,
but drew back, sat erect in his chair, and said with ringing decision:
"the sapling is Philip d'Avranche, of the Jersey Isle."

For a moment there was silence be