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Then with hurried speech he told her of five years’ events: how within that period King Henry had conquered entire France, and had married the French King’s daughter, and had begotten a boy who would presently inherit the united realms of France and England, since in the supreme hour of triumph King Henry had been stricken with a mortal sickness, and now lay dying or perhaps already dead, at Vincennes; and how with his penultimate breath the prostrate conqueror had restored to Queen Jehane all properties and all honors which she formerly enjoyed.

“I shall once more be Regent,” the woman said when he had made an end; “Antoine, I shall presently be Regent both of France and of England, since Dame Katharine is but a child.” Jehane stood motionless save for the fine hands that plucked the air. “Mistress of Europe! absolute mistress, and with an infant ward! now, may God have mercy on my unfriends, for they will soon perceive great need of it!”

“Yet was mercy ever the prerogative of royal persons,” the Vicomte suavely said, “and the Navarrese we know of was both royal and very merciful, O Constant Lover.”

The speech was as a whip-lash. Abruptly suspicion kindled in her eyes, as a flame leaps from stick to stick. “Harry of Monmouth feared neither man nor God. It needed more than any death-bed repentance to frighten him into restoral of my liberty.” There was a silence. “You, a Frenchman, come as the emissary of King Henry who has devastated France! are there no English lords, then, left alive of all his army?”

The Vicomte de Montbrison said: “There is perhaps no person better fitted to patch up this dishonorable business of your captivity, wherein a clean man might scarcely dare to meddle.”

She appraised this, and more lately said with entire irrelevance: “The world has smirched you, somehow. At last you have done something save consider your ill-treatment. I praise God, Antoine, for it brings you nearer.”

He told her all. King Henry, it appeared, had dealt with him at Havering in perfect frankness. The King needed money for his wars in France, and failing the seizure of Jehane’s enormous wealth, had exhausted every resource. “And France I mean to have,” the King said. “Yet the world knows you enjoy the favor of the Comte de Charolais; so get me an alliance with Burgundy against my imbecile brother of France, and Dame Jehane shall repossess her liberty. There you have my price.”

“And this price I paid,” the Vicomte sternly said, “for ‘Unhardy is unseely,’ Satan whispered, and I knew that Duke Philippe trusted me. Yea, all Burgundy I marshalled under your stepson’s banner, and for three years I fought beneath his loathed banner, until in Troyes we had trapped and slain the last loyal Frenchman. And to-day in France my lands are confiscate, and there is not an honest Frenchman but spits upon my name. All infamy I come to you for this last time, Jehane! as a man already dead I come to you, Jehane, for in France they thirst to murder me, and England has no further need of Montbrison, her blunted and her filthy instrument!”

The woman shuddered. “You have set my thankless service above your life, above your honor even. I find the rhymester glorious and very vile.”

“All vile,” he answered; “and outworn! King’s daughter, I swore to you, long since, eternal service. Of love I freely gave you yonder in Navarre, as yonder at Eltham I crucified my innermost heart for your delectation. Yet I, at least, keep faith, and in your face I fling faith like a glove–outworn, it may be, and, God knows, unclean! Yet I, at least, keep faith! Lands and wealth have I given up for you, O king’s daughter, and life itself have I given you, and lifelong service have I given you, and all that I had save honor; and at the last I give you honor, too. Now let the naked fool depart, Jehane, for he has nothing more to give.”