al, in fine silk and cloth of gold, the
letter of the Soldan. She took it, surveyed it carelessly, then laid it
aside, and bending her eyes once more on the knight, she said in a low
tone, "Not even a word to do thine errand to me?"

He pressed both his hands to his brow, as if to intimate the pain which
he felt at being unable to obey her; but she turned from him in anger.

"Begone!" she said. "I have spoken enough--too much--to one who will not
waste on me a word in reply. Begone!--and say, if I have wronged thee, I
have done penance; for if I have been the unhappy means of dragging thee
down from a station of honour, I have, in this interview, forgotten my
own worth, and lowered myself in thy eyes and in my own."

She covered her eyes with her hands, and seemed deeply agitated. Sir
Kenneth would have approached, but she waved him back.

"Stand off! thou whose soul Heaven hath suited to its new station!
Aught less dull and fearful than a slavish mute had spoken a word of
gratitude, were it but to reconcile me to my own degradation. Why pause
you?--begone!"

The disguised knight almost involuntarily looked towards the letter as
an apology for protracting his stay. She snatched it up, saying in a
tone of irony and contempt, "I had forgotten--the dutiful slave waits an
answer to his message. How's this--from the Soldan!"

She hastily ran over the contents, which were expressed both in Arabic
and French, and when she had done, she laughed in bitter anger.

"Now this passes imagination!" she said; "no jongleur can show so deft
a transmutation! His legerdemain can transform zechins and byzants into
doits and maravedis; but can his art convert a Christian knight, ever
esteemed among the bravest of the Holy Crusade, into the dust-kissing
slave of a heathen Soldan--the bearer of a paynim's insolent proposals
to a Christian maiden--nay, forgetting the laws of honourable chivalry,
as well as of religion? But it avails not talking to the willing slave
of a heathen hound. Tell your master, when his scourge shall have found
thee a tongue, that which thou hast seen me do"--so saying, she threw
the Soldan's letter on the ground, and placed her foot upon it--"and
say to him, that Edith Plantagenet scorns the homage of an unchristened
pagan."

With these words she was about to shoot from the knight, when, kneeling
at her feet in bitter agony, he ventured to lay his hand upon her robe
and oppose her departure.

"Heard'st thou