ch wisdom as would inevitably prompt you
to make an end of me. Yet, what the devil! you, the time-battered
vagabond, decline happiness and a kingdom to boot because of
yesterday's mummery in the cathedral! because of a mere promise given!
Yes, I have my spies in every rat-hole. I am aware that my barons hate
me, and hate Philibert almost as bitterly,--and that, in fine, a
majority of my barons would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable
place, on account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry. Oh,
yes, I understand my barons perfectly. I flatter myself I understand
everybody in Venaissin save you."

Raimbaut answered: "You and I are not alike."

"No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince of Orange, heartily.
"And yet, I am not sure----" He rose, for his sight had failed him so
that he could not distinctly see you except when he spoke with head
thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall. "For instance, do
you understand that I hold Biatritz here as a prisoner, because her
dower-lands are necessary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon
as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?"

"All Venaissin knows that. Yes, you have always gained everything
which you desired in this world, Guillaume. Yet it was at a price, I
think."

"I am no haggler. . . . But you have never comprehended me, not even in
the old days when we loved each other. For instance, do you
understand--slave of a spoken word!--what it must mean to me to know
that at this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no person
whom I hate?"

Messire de Vaquieras reflected. His was never a rapid mind. "Why, no,
I do not know anything about hatred," he said, at last. "I think I
never hated any person."

Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture. "Now, Heaven send you
troubadours a clearer understanding of what sort of world we live
in----!" He broke off short and growled, "And yet--sometimes I envy
you, Raimbaut!"

They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to witness the death of
Lovain. Guillaume took with him his two new mistresses and all his
by-blows, each magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival.
Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house, a rope was
fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was gently lowered into a pot
of boiling oil. His feet cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs,
and so on upward, while Lovain screamed. Guillaume in a loose robe of
green powd