‘God knoweth,’ says the abbot, ’this was a bad case; but I had a good thought for it.’  He began to speak of Richard, of what he had done and what would live to do.  ’They say that the strain of the fiend is in that race, my dear,’ he told her.  ’They say that Geoffrey Grey-Gown had intercourse with a demon.  And certain it is that in Richard, as in all his brothers, that stinging grain lives in the blood.  For testimony look at their cognisance of leopards, and advise yourself, whether any house in Christendom ever took that device but had known familiarly the devil in some shape?  And look again at the deeds of these princes.  What turned the young king to riot and death, and Geoffrey to rapine and death?  What else will turn John Sansterre to treachery and death, or our tall Richard to violence and death?  Nothing else, nothing else.  But before he dies you shall see him glorious—­’

‘He is glorious already,’ said Jehane, wiping her eyes.

‘Keep him so, then,’ said the abbot testily, who did not love to have his periods truncated.

‘If I go back to Saint-Pol,’ said Jehane, ’I shall fall in with Gilles de Gurdun, who has sworn to have me.’

‘Well,’ replied the abbot, ’why should he not?  Does he receive the assurance of your brother the Count?’

Jehane shook her head.  ’No, no.  My brother wished me to be my lord Richard’s.  But Gilles needs no assurance.  He will buy my marriage from the King of France.  He is very sufficient.’

‘Hath he substance?  Hath he lands?  Is he noble, then, Jehane?’

‘He hath knighthood, a Church fief—­oh, enough!’

‘God forgive me if I did amiss,’ writes the abbot here; ’but seeing her in a melting mood, dewy, soft, and adorable, I kissed that beautiful person, and she left the Chapel of Saint Remy somewhat comforted.’

Not only so, but the same day she left the Dark Tower with her brother Count Eustace, and rode towards Gisors and Saint-Pol-la-Marche.  Nothing she could do could be shamefully done, because of her silence, and the high head upon which she carried it; yet the Count of Saint-Pol, when he heard her story, sitting bulky in his chair (like a stalled red bull), did his best to put shame upon her, that so he might cover his own bitterness.  It was Eustace, a generous ardent youth in those days, who saved her from most of Eudo’s wrath by drawing it upon himself.

The Count of Saint-Pol swore a great oath.

‘By the teeth of God, Jehane,’ he roared, ’I see how it is.  He hath made thee a piece of ruin, and now runs wasting elsewhere.’

‘You shall never say that of my sister, my lord,’ cries Eustace, very red in the face, ‘nor yet of the greatest knight in the world.’

‘Why, you egg,’ says the Count, ’what have you to do in this?  Tell me the rights of it before you put me in the wrong.  Is my house to be the sport of Anjou?  Is that long son of pirates and the devil to batten on our pastures, tread underfoot, bruise and blacken, rout as he will, break hedge and away?  By my father’s soul, Eustace, I shall see her righted.’  He turned to the still girl.  ’You tell me that you sent him away?  Where did you send him?  Where did he go?’