tplace, where will be four horses. One of these horses they will
harness to each arm and leg of your Biatritz. Then they will beat
these horses. These will be strong horses. They will each run in a
different direction."

This infamy also was certain. Raimbaut foresaw what he must do. He
clutched the dagger which Makrisi fondled. "Belhs Cavaliers, this
fellow speaks the truth. Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange
to know it will outlive us?"

And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: "I understand. If I
leave this room alive it will purchase a hideous suffering for my poor
body, it will bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
chevaliers. I know. I would perforce confess all that the masked men
bade me. I know, for in Prince Conrat's time I have seen persons who
had been put to the Question----" She shuddered; and she re-began,
without any agitation: "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."

"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he answered, "since we
are informed by those in holy orders that all such as lay violent hands
upon themselves must suffer eternally." Then, kneeling, he cried, in
an extremity of adoration: "Oh, I have served you all my life. You
may not now deny me this last service. And while I talk they dig your
grave! O blind men, making the new grave, take heed lest that grave be
too narrow, for already my heart is breaking in my body. I have drunk
too deep of sorrow. And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and
mercy and my love for you demand I kill you before I also die--in such
a fashion as this fellow speaks of."

She did not dispute this. How could she when it was an axiom in all
Courts of Love that Heaven held dominion in a lover's heart only as an
underling of the man's mistress?

And so she said, with a fond smile: "It is your demonstrable
privilege. I would not grant it, dear, were my weak hands as clean as
yours. Oh, but it is long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you
have served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body now that
your service ends!"

And he demanded, wearily: "When we were boy and girl together what had
we said if any one had told us this would be the end?"

"We would have laughed. It is a long while since those children
laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet, not yet!" she said. "Ah, pity
me, tried champion, for even now I am almost afraid to die."

She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering, starin