lord. I have had everything, and upon each feast of will and sense the
world afforded me this love has swept down, like a harpy--was it not a
harpy you called the bird in that old poem of yours?--to rob me of
delight. And you have had nothing, for of life he has pilfered you,
and he has given you in exchange but dreams, my poor Antoine, and he
has led you at the last to infamy. We are as God made us, and--I may
not understand why He permits this despotism."

Thereafter, somewhere below, a peasant sang as he passed supperward
through the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone.

Sang the peasant:

"_King Jesus hung upon the Cross,
'And have ye sinned?' quo' He,--
'Nay, Dysmas, 'tis no honest loss
When Satan cogs the dice ye toss,
And thou shall sup with Me,--
Sedebis apud angelos,
Quia amavisti!'_

"_At Heaven's Gate was Heaven's Queen,
'And have ye sinned?' quo' She,--
'And would I hold him worth a bean
That durst not seek, because unclean,
My cleansing charity?--
Speak thou that wast the Magdalene,
Quia amavisti!'_"

"It may be that in some sort the jingle answers me!" then said Jehane;
and she began with an odd breathlessness: "Friend, when King Henry
dies--and even now he dies--shall I not as Regent possess such power as
no woman has ever wielded in Europe? can aught prevent this?"

"Naught," he answered.

"Unless, friend, I were wedded to a Frenchman. Then would the stern
English lords never permit that I have any finger in the government."
She came to him with conspicuous deliberation and laid one delicate
hand upon either shoulder. "Friend, I am aweary of these tinsel
splendors. I crave the real kingdom."

Her mouth was tremulous and lax, and her gray eyes were more brilliant
than the star yonder. The man's arms were about her, and an ecstasy
too noble for any common mirth had mastered them, and a vast desire
whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.

And of the man's face I cannot tell you. "King's daughter! mistress of
half Europe! I am a beggar, an outcast, as a leper among honorable
persons."

But it was as though he had not spoken. "Friend, it was for this I
have outlived these garish, fevered years, it was this which made me
glad when I was a child and laughed without knowing why. That I might
to-day give up this so-great power for love of you, my all-incapable
and soiled Antoine, was, as I now