le, captious] man, but no worse. But my Lord of Winchester did
I never trust, nor did I cease to marvel that man could. As to King
Edward, betray him to his enemies to-day, and he should put his life in
your hands again to-morrow: never saw I man like to him, that no
experience would learn mistrust. Queen Isabel trusted few: but of them
my said Lord of Winchester was one. I have noted at times that they
which be untrue themselves be little given to trust other. She trusted
none save them she had tried: and she had tried this Bishop, not once
nor twice. He never brake faith with her; but with King Edward he brake
it a score of times twice told, and with his son that is now King
belike. I wis not whether at this time the Queen was ready to put
affiance in him; I scarce think she was: for she shut both Bishops out
of her Council from the day she came to Paris. But not at this time,
nor for long after did I guess what it signified.

November was nigh run out, when one morrow Dame Joan de Vaux brought
word that the Queen, being a-cold, commanded her velvet mantle taken to
her cabinet: and I, as the dame in waiting then on duty, took the same
to her. I found her sat of a chair of carven wood, beside the brasier,
and two gentlemen of the other side of the hearth. Behind her chair
Dame Elizabeth waited, and I gave the mantle to her to cast over the
Queen's shoulders. The gentlemen stood with their backs to the light,
and I paid little note to them at first, save to see that one was a
priest: but as I went about to go forth, the one that was not a priest
turned his face, and I perceived to mine amaze that it was Sir Roger de
Mortimer. Soothly, it needed all my courtly self-command that I should
not cry out when I beheld him. Had I followed the prompting of mine own
heart, I should have cried, "Get thee gone, thou banished traitor!" He,
who had returned unlicenced from Scotland ere the war was over, in the
time of old King Edward of Westminster; that had borne arms against his
son, then King, under my Lord of Lancaster; that, having his life
spared, and being but sent to the Tower, had there plotted to seize
three of the chief fortresses of the Crown--namely, the said Tower, and
the Castles of Windsor and Wallingford,--and had thereupon been cast for
death, and only spared through the intercession of the Queen and the
Bishop of Hereford: yet, after all this, had he broken prison, bribing
one of his keepers and druggi