‘Yes, Madame.  Oh, Madame—!’ Jehane, trembling before her visions, could hardly stand still; but the Queen (who had no visions now the mirror was put by) went plaining on.

’When I was in my father’s court his poets called me Frozen Heart, because I was cold in loving.  Messire Bertran de Born loved me, and so did my cousin the Count of Provence, and the Count of Orange, and Raimbaut, and Gaucelm, and Ebles of Ventadorn.  Now I have found one colder than ever I was, and I am burning.  Are you a great lover of the King?’

At this question, put so quietly, Jehane grew grave.  It took her above her sense of dangers, being in itself a dignity.  ’I love the King so well, Queen Berengere,’ she said, ’that I think I shall make him hate me in time.’

‘Folly,’ snapped the Queen, ’or guile.  You would spur him.  Is it true what the Abbot Milo told me?’

‘I know not what he has told you,’ said Jehane; ’but it is true that I have not dared let the King love me, and now dare least of all.’

The Queen clenched her hands and teeth.  ‘You devil,’ she said, ’how I hate you.  You reject what I long for, and he loathes me for your sake.  You a creature of nought, and I a king’s daughter.’

From the nostrils of Jehane the breath came fluttering and quick; in her splendid bosom stirred a storm that, if she had chosen to let it loose, could have shrivelled this little prickly leaf:  but she replied nothing to the Queen’s hatred.  Instead, with eyes fixed in vacancy, and one hand upon her neck, she spoke her own purpose and lifted the talk to high matters.

‘I touch not again your King and mine, O Queen.  But I go to save him.’

‘Woman,’ said Berengere, ’do you dare tell me this?  Are my miseries nothing to you?  Have you not worked woe enough?’

Jehane suddenly threw her hair back, fell upon her knees, lifted her chin.  ’Madame, Madame, Madame!  I must save him if I die.  I implore your pardon—­I must go!’

‘Why, what can you do against Montferrat?’ The Queen shivered a little:  Jehane looked fixedly at her, solemn as a dying nun.

‘You say that I am handsome,’ she said, then stopped.  Then in a very low voice—­’Well, I will do what I can.’  She hung her golden head.

The Queen, after a moment of shock, laughed cruelly.  ’I suppose I could not wish you anything worse than that.  I hate you above all people in the world, mother of a bastard.  Oh, it will be enough punishment.  Go, you hot snake; leave me.’

Jehane rose to her feet, bowed her head and went out.  Next moment the Queen must have whipped out of bed, for she caught her before she could shut the door, and clung to her neck, sobbing desperately.  ’O God, Jehane, save Richard!  Have mercy on me, I am most wretched.’  Now the other seemed to be queen.

‘My girl,’ said Jehane, ‘I will do what I promised.’  She kissed the scorching forehead, and went away with Milo to find Giafar ibn Mulk.