fought with him,
and you are an honourable gentleman," she added gently.

"No gentleman I," he burst forth, "but jailer base, and soldier born
upon a truss of hay. But honour is an apple any man may eat since Adam
walked in garden.... 'Tis honest foe, here," he continued magnanimously,
and nodded towards me.

"We would have told you all," she said, "but how dare we involve you, or
how dare we tempt you, or how dare we risk your refusal? It was love
and truth drove us to this; and God will bless this mating as the birds
mate, even as He gives honour to Gabord who was born upon a truss of
hay."

"Poom!" said Gabord, puffing out his cheeks, and smiling on her with a
look half sour, and yet with a doglike fondness, "Gabord's mouth is shut
till 's head is off, and then to tell the tale to Twelve Apostles!"

Through his wayward, illusive speech we found his meaning. He would keep
faith with us, and be best proof of this marriage, at risk of his head
even.

As we spoke, the chaplain was writing in the blank fore-pages of the
Prayer Book. Presently he said to me, handing me the pen, which he had
picked from a table, "Inscribe your names here. It is a rough record of
the ceremony, but it will suffice before all men, when to-morrow I have
given Mistress Moray another record."

We wrote our names, and then the pen was handed to Gabord. He took it,
and at last, with many flourishes and ahos, and by dint of puffings and
rolling eyes, he wrote his name so large that it filled as much space
as the other names and all the writing, and was indeed like a huge
indorsement across the record.

When this was done, Alixe held out her hand to him. "Will you kiss me,
Gabord?" she said.

The great soldier was all taken back. He flushed like a schoolboy, yet a
big humour and pride looked out of his eyes.

"I owe you for the sables, too," she said. "But kiss me--not on my ears,
as the Russian count kissed Gabord, but on both cheek."

This won him to our cause utterly, and I never think of Gabord, as I saw
him last in the sway and carnage of battle, fighting with wild uproar
and covered with wounds, but the memory of that moment, when he kissed
my young wife, comes back to me.

At that he turned to leave. "I'll hold the door for ten minutes," he
added; and bowed to the chaplain, who blessed us then with tears in his
eyes, and smiled a little to my thanks and praises and purse of
gold, and to Alixe's sweet gratitude. With lifting chin-