a child." Jehane stood
motionless save for the fine hands that plucked the air. "Mistress of
Europe! absolute mistress, and with an infant ward! now, may God have
mercy on my unfriends, for they will soon perceive great need of it!"

"Yet was mercy ever the prerogative of royal persons," the Vicomte
suavely said, "and the Navarrese we know of was both royal and very
merciful, O Constant Lover."

The speech was as a whip-lash. Abruptly suspicion kindled in her
shrewd gray eyes. "Harry of Monmouth feared neither man nor God. It
needed more than any death-bed repentance to frighten him into
restoring my liberty." There was a silence. "You, a Frenchman, come as
the emissary of King Henry who has devastated France! are there no
English lords, then, left alive of his, army?"

The Vicomte de Montbrison said; "There is at all events no person
better fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your
captivity, in which no clean man would care to meddle."

She appraised this, and said with entire irrelevance: "The world has
smirched you, somehow. At last you have done something save consider
how badly I treated you. I praise God, Antoine, for it brings you
nearer."

He told her all. King Henry, it appeared, had dealt with him at
Havering in perfect frankness. The King needed money for his wars in
France, and failing the seizure of Jehane's enormous wealth, had
exhausted every resource. "And France I mean to have," the King said.
"Now the world knows you enjoy the favor of the Comte de Charolais; so
get me an alliance with Burgundy against my imbecile brother of
France, and Dame Jehane shall repossess her liberty. There you have my
price."

"And this price I paid," the Vicomte sternly said, "for 'Unhardy is
unseely,' Satan whispered, and I knew that Duke Philippe trusted me.
Yea, all Burgundy I marshalled under your stepson's banner, and for
three years I fought beneath his loathed banner, until at Troyes we
had trapped and slain the last loyal Frenchman. And to-day in France
my lands are confiscate, and there is not an honest Frenchman but
spits upon my name. All infamy I come to you for this last time,
Jehane! as a man already dead I come to you, Jehane, for in France
they thirst to murder me, and England has no further need of
Montbrison, her blunted and her filthy instrument!"

The woman nodded here. "You have set my thankless service above your
life, above your honor. I find the rhymester glorious and very vile."