So he prayed, and upon the next day as these two rode southward, he sang half as if in defiance.

Sang Miguel: 

    “And still,—­whatever years impend
  To witness Time a fickle friend,
  And Youth a dwindling fire,—­
  I must adore till all years end
  My first love, Heart’s Desire.

    “I may not hear men speak of her
  Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir
  To greet her passing-by,
  And I, in all her worshipper
  Must serve her till I die.

    “For I remember:  this is she
  That reigns in one man’s memory
  Immune to age and fret,
  And stays the maid I may not see
  Nor win to, nor forget.”

It was on the following day, near Bazas, that these two encountered Adam de Gourdon, a Provencal knight, with whom the Prince fought for a long while, without either contestant giving way; in consequence a rendezvous was fixed for the November of that year, and afterward the Prince and de Gourdon parted, highly pleased with each other.

Thus the Prince and his attendant came, in late September, to Mauleon, on the Castilian frontier, and dined there at the Fir Cone. Three or four lackeys were about—­some exalted person’s retinue?  Prince Edward hazarded to the swart little landlord, as the Prince and Miguel lingered over the remnants of their meal.

Yes, the fellow informed them:  the Prince de Gatinais had lodged there for a whole week, watching the north road, as circumspect of all passage as a cat over a mouse-hole.  Eh, monseigneur expected some one, doubtless—­a lady, it might be,—­the gentlefolk had their escapades like every one else.  The innkeeper babbled vaguely, for on a sudden he was very much afraid of his gigantic patron.

“You will show me to his room,” Prince Edward said, with a politeness that was ingratiating.

The host shuddered and obeyed.

Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his finger-tips drumming upon the table.  He rose suddenly and flung back his shoulders, all resolution.  On the stairway he passed the black little landlord, who was now in a sad twitter, foreseeing bloodshed.  But Miguel de Rueda went on to the room above.  The door was ajar.  He paused there.

De Gatinais had risen from his dinner and stood facing the door.  He, too, was a blond man and the comeliest of his day.  And at sight of him awoke in the woman’s heart all the old tenderness; handsome and brave and witty she knew him to be, as indeed the whole world knew him to be distinguished by every namable grace; and the innate weakness of de Gatinais, which she alone suspected, made him now seem doubly dear.  Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from bodily hurt than from that self-degradation which she cloudily apprehended to be at hand; the test was come, and Etienne would fail.  Thus much she knew with a sick, illimitable surety, and she loved de Gatinais with a passion which dwarfed comprehension.