Said she, leaning her head on his breast, ’Every woman that beareth a child is mother of a king; but not every woman’s child hath a king to his father.  Thus it is with me, Richard, who am doubly blessed.’

‘Ah, God!’ he cried, poignantly concerned, ’Ah God, Jehane, see what trammels I have enmeshed us in, thee in one net and me in another!  So that neither can I help thee, being roped down to this work, nor thou thyself, trapped by my fault.  How shall I do?  Lo, my sin, my sin!  I cried Yea; and now cometh God, and, Nay, King Richard, He saith.  The sin is mine, and the burden of the sin is thine.  Is this a horrible thing?

Jehane smiled up in his face.  ’And dost thou think it, Richard, a burden so grievous,’ she said, ’to be mother of thy son?  Dost thou think that the world can be harsh to me after that; or that in the life to come there will be no remembrance to make the long days sweet?’ She looked very proudly upon him, smiling all the time; she put her hands up and crowned his head with them.  ’Oh, my dear life, my pride and my master,’ said Jehane, ’let all come to me that must come now; I am rich above all my desires, and my lowliness has been of no account with God.  Now let me go, blessing His name.’

He would not let her go, but still looked earnestly down at her, struggling with himself against himself.

‘I must be married, Jehane,’ says he presently.  And she, ’In a good hour, my lord.’

‘It is an accursed hour,’ he said; ‘nothing but ill can come of it.’

‘Lord,’ said she, ‘thou art vowed to this work.’

‘I know it very well,’ he replied; ‘but a man does as he can.’

‘You, my King Richard, do as you will,’ said Jehane.  So he kissed her and let her go.

Among the multitudinous affairs now heaped upon him—­business of his new empire and his old, business of Guy’s, business of the war, business of marriage—­he set first and foremost this business of Jehane’s.  He removed her from the Queen’s house, gave her house and household of her own.  It was in Limasol, a pleasant place overlooking the sea and the ships, a square white house set deep in myrtle woods and oleanders.  Once more the ‘Countess of Poictou’ had her seneschal, chaplain, ladies of honour.  That done, he fixed Saint Pancras’ day for his marriage, had the ships got out, furnished, and appointed for sea.  The night before Saint Pancras he sent for Abbot Milo in a hurry.  Milo found him walking about his room, taking long, carefully accurate strides from flagstone to flagstone.

He continued this feverish devotion for some minutes after his confessor’s coming-in; and seeing him deep in thought, the good man stood patient by the doorway.  So presently Richard seemed aware of him, stopped in mid walk, and looking at him, said—­

‘Milo, continence is, I suppose, of all virtues the most excellent?’ Milo prepared to expatiate.

’Undoubtedly, sire, it is so, because of all virtues the least comfortable.  Saint Chrysostom, indeed, goes so far as to declare—­’; but Richard broke in.