.
Ah, for the love of God, go! Go, while there is yet time!"

Sire Edward reflected. Undoubtedly, to light on Edward Longshanks
alone in a forest would appear to King Philippe, if properly attended,
a tempting chance to settle divers disputations, once for all; and Sire
Edward knew the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable. The
act would violate all laws of hospitality and knighthood--oh, granted!
but its outcome would be a very definite gain to France, and for the
rest, merely a dead body in a ditch. Not a monarch in Christendom,
Sire Edward reflected, but feared and in consequence hated the Hammer
of the Scots, and in further consequence would not lift a finger to
avenge him; and not a being in the universe would rejoice at Philippe's
achievement one-half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and
immediate successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon. So that,
all in all, ohime! Philippe had planned the affair with forethought.

What Sire Edward said was, "Dame Blanch, then, knew of this?" But
Meregrett's pitiful eyes had already answered him, and he laughed a
little.

"In that event I have to-night enregistered my name among the goodly
company of Love's Lunatics--

"_Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages,
Sots vieux, nouveaux, et sots de tous ages,_"

thus he scornfully declaimed, "and as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his
thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places
of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within the net of
Mulciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels
us, and allures the soul to such sensual delights as bar its passage
toward the eternal life wherein alone lies the empire and the heritage
of the soul. And why does this carnal prison so impede the soul?
Because Satan once ranked among the sons of God, and the Eternal
Father, as I take it, has not yet forgotten the antique
relationship--and hence it is permitted even in our late time that
always the flesh rebel against the spirit, and always these so tiny and
so thin-voiced tricksters, these highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so
gracious in demeanor and so starry-eyed--"

Then he turned and pointed, no longer the zealot but the expectant
captain now. "Look, my Princess!" For in the pathway from which he
had recently emerged stood a man in full armor like a sentinel. "Mort
de Dieu, we can but try," Sire Edward said.

"Too late," said Meregrett; and