r man in all
the town," she went on, with a scolding grimace. "He has silver in his
purse, a gable over the Seine, a stout halbert on one hand, an honest
wife on the other, a house as clean and smart as a new pin! And he
growls like a pilgrim smarting from Saint Anthony's fire!"

"Hey day!" exclaimed the sergeant of the watch, "do you fancy,
Jacqueline, that I have any wish to see my house razed down, my halbert
given to another, and my wife standing in the pillory?"

Jacqueline and the dainty journeywoman turned pale.

"Just tell me what you are driving at," said the washerwoman sharply,
"and make a clean breast of it. For some days, my man, I have observed
that you have some maggot twisting in your poor brain. Come up, then,
and have it all out. You must be a pretty coward indeed if you fear any
harm when you have only to guard the common council and live under the
protection of the Chapter! Their Reverences the Canons would lay the
whole bishopric under an interdict if Jacqueline brought a complaint of
the smallest damage."

As she spoke, she went straight up to her husband and took him by the
arm.

"Come with me," she added, pulling him up and out on to the steps.

When they were down by the water in their little garden, Jacqueline
looked saucily in her husband's face.

"I would have you to know, you old gaby, that when my lady fair goes
out, a piece of gold comes into our savings-box."

"Oh, ho!" said the constable, who stood silent and meditative before his
wife. But he presently said, "Any way, we are done for.--What brings the
dame to our house?"

"She comes to see the well-favored young clerk who lives overhead,"
replied Jacqueline, looking up at the window that opened on to the vast
landscape of the Seine valley.

"The Devil's in it!" cried the man. "For a few base crowns you have
ruined me, Jacqueline. Is that an honest trade for a sergeant's decent
wife to ply? And, be she Countess or Baroness, the lady will not be able
to get us out of the trap in which we shall find ourselves caught sooner
or later. Shall we not have to square accounts with some puissant and
offended husband? for, by the Mass, she is fair to look upon!"

"But she is a widow, I tell you, gray gander! How dare you accuse your
wife of foul play and folly? And the lady has never spoken a word to yon
gentle clerk, she is content to look on him and think of him. Poor lad!
he would be dead of starvation by now but for her, for she is