He would trust no one with his present reflections, and seek no outside strength against his present temptations.  He had always had his way; it had seemed to come to him by right, by the droit de seigneur, the natural law which puts the necks of fools under the heels of strong men.  No need to consider of all that:  he knew that the thing desired lay to his hand; he could make Jehane his again if he would, and neither King of England nor King of France, nor Council of Westminster nor Diet of the Empire could stop him—­if he would.  But that, he felt now, was just what he would not.  To beat her down with torrents of love-cries; to have her trembling, cowed, drummed out of her wits by her own heart-beats; to compel, to dominate, to tame, when her young pride and young strength were the things most beautiful in her:  never, by the Cross of Christ!  That, I suppose, is as near to true love as a man can get, to reverence in a girl that which holds her apart.  Richard got so near precisely because he was less lover than poet.  You may doubt, if you choose (with Abbot Milo), whether he had love in him.  I doubt.  But certainly he was a poet.  He saw Jehane all glorious, and gave thanks for the sight.  He felt to touch heaven when he neared her; but he did not covet her possession, at the moment.  Perhaps he felt that he did possess her:  it is a poet’s way.  So little, at any rate, did he covet, that, having made up his mind what he would do, he sent Gaston of Bearn to Saint-Pol-la-Marche with a letter for Jehane, in which he said:  ’In two days I shall see you for the last or for all time, as you will’—­and then possessed himself in patience the appointed number of hours.

Gaston of Bearn, romantic figure in those grey latitudes, pale, black-eyed, freakishly bearded, dressed in bright green, rode his way singing, announced himself to the lady as the Child of Love; and when he saw her kissed her foot.

‘Starry Wonder of the North,’ he said, kneeling, ’I bring fuel to your ineffable fires.  Our King of Lovers and Lover among Kings is all at your feet, sighing in this paper.’  He seemed to talk in capitals, with a flourish handed her the scroll.  He had the gratification to see her clap a hand to her side directly she touched it; but no more.  She perused it with unwavering eyes in a stiff head.

‘Farewell, sir,’ she said then; ‘I will prepare for my lord.’

‘And I, lady,’ said Gaston, ’in consequence of a vow I have vowed my saint, will await his coming in the forest, neither sleeping nor eating until he has his enormous desires.  Farewell, lady.’

He went out backwards, to keep his promise.  The brown woodland was gay with him for a day and a night; for he sang nearly all the time with unflagging spirits.  But Jehane spent part of the interval in the chapel, with her hands crossed upon her fine bosom.  The God in her heart fought with Him on the altar.  She said no prayers; but when she left the place she sent a messenger for Gilles de Gurdun, the blunt-nosed Norman knight who loved her so much that he said nothing about it.