the substance of all crowns."

And now the woman lifted to him a huge golden collar garnished with
emeralds and sapphires and with many pearls, and in the sunlight the
gems were tawdry things. "Friend, the chain is heavy, and I lack the
power to cast it off. The Navarrese we know of wore no such perilous
fetters about her neck. Ah, you should have mastered me at Vannes.
You could have done so, and very easily. But you only talked--oh, Mary
pity us! you only talked!--and I could find only a servant where I had
sore need to find a master. Then pity me."

But now came many armed soldiers into the apartment. With spirit Queen
Jehane turned to meet them, and you saw that she was of royal blood,
for the pride of ill-starred emperors blazed and informed her body as
light occupies a lantern. "At last you come for me, messieurs?"

"Whereas," their leader read in answer from a parchment--"whereas the
King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, is accused by certain persons of an
act of witchcraft that with diabolical and subtile methods wrought
privily to destroy the King, the said Dame Jehane is by the King
committed (all her attendants being removed), to the custody of Sir
John Pelham, who will, at the King's pleasure, confine her within
Pevensey Castle, there to be kept under Sir John's control: the lands
and other properties of the said Dame Jehane being hereby forfeit to
the King, whom God preserve!"

"Harry of Monmouth!" said Jehane--"oh, Harry of Monmouth, could I but
come to you, very quietly, and with a knife--!" She shrugged her
shoulders, and the gold about her person glittered in the sunlight.
"Witchcraft! ohime, one never disproves that. Friend, now are you
avenged the more abundantly."

"Young Riczi is avenged," the Vicomte said; "and I came hither desiring
vengeance."

She wheeled, a lithe flame (he thought) of splendid fury. "And in the
gutter Jehane dares say what Queen Jehane upon the throne might never
say. Had I reigned all these years as mistress not of England but of
Europe--had nations wheedled me in the place of barons--young Riczi had
been avenged, no less. Bah! what do these so-little persons matter?
Take now your petty vengeance! drink deep of it! and know that always
within my heart the Navarrese has lived to shame me! Know that to-day
you despise Jehane, the purchased woman! and that Jehane loves you! and
that the love of proud Jehane creeps like a beaten cur toward your
feet, and in the sig