yet she followed him. And presently,
in a big splash of moonlight, the armed man's falchion glittered across
their way. "Back," he bade them, "for by the King's orders no man
passes."

"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward reflected.

"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow retorted. "Nay,
Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueil are alive with my
associates. The hut yonder, in effect, is girdled by them--and we have
our orders."

"Concerning women?" the King said.

The man deliberated. Then Sire Edward handed him three gold pieces.
"There was assuredly no specific mention of petticoats," the soldier
now reflected, "and in consequence I dare to pass the Princess."

"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain had as well bid each
other adieu."

But Meregrett only said, "You bid me go?"

He waved his hand. "Since there is no choice. For that which you have
done--however tardily--I thank you. Meantime I can but return to
Rigon's hut to rearrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins
fell upon him, and to encounter whatever Dame Luck may send with due
decorum."

"To die!" she said.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "In the end we necessarily die."

Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut without faltering.

And when he had lighted the inefficient lamp which he found there, Sire
Edward wheeled upon her in half-humorous vexation. "Presently come
your brother and his tattling lords. To be discovered here with me at
night, alone, means infamy. If Philippe chance to fall into one of his
Capetian rages it means death."

"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death." And she laughed, though
not merrily.

And now, for the first time, Sire Edward regarded her with profound
consideration, as may we. To the fingertips this so-little lady showed
a descendant of the holy Lewis he had known and loved in old years.
Small and thinnish she was, with soft and profuse hair that, for all
its blackness, gleamed in the lamplight with stray ripples of
brilliancy, as you may see a spark shudder to extinction over burning
charcoal. The Valois nose she had, long and delicate in form, and
overhanging a short upper-lip; yet the lips were glorious in tint, and
her skin the very Hyperborean snow in tint. As for her eyes, say,
gigantic onyxes--or ebony highly polished and wet with May dew. They
were too big for her little face; and they made of her a tiny and