It wanted but that to blow the embers.  Something tigerish surged in him, some gust of jealousy, some arrogant tide in the blood not all clean.  He moved forward like a wind and caught the girl up in his arms, lifted her off her feet, smothered her cry.  ‘My Jehane, my Jehane, who dares—?’ Gilles touched him on the shoulder, and he turned like lightning with Jehane held fast.  His breath came quick and short through his nose:  Gilles believed his last hour at hand, but made the most of it.

‘What now, dog?’ thus the lean Richard.

‘Set down the lady, my lord,’ said doughty Gilles.  ’She is promised to me.’

‘Heart of God, what is this?’ He held back his head, like a snake, that he might see what he would strike at.  ‘Is it true, girl?’ Jehane looked up from his shoulder, where she had been hiding her face.  She could not speak, but she nodded.

‘It is true?  Thou art promised?’

‘I am promised, my lord,’ said Jehane.  ‘Let me go.’

He put her down at once, between himself and Gurdun.  Gurdun went to take up her hand again, but at a look from Richard forbore.  The Count went on with his interrogatories, outwardly as calm as a field of snow.

’In whose name art thou promised to this knight, Jehane?  In thy brother’s?’

‘No, lord.  In my own.’

‘Am I nothing?’ She began to cry.

‘Oh, oh!’ she wailed, ‘You are everything, everything in the world.’

He turned away from her, and stood facing the altar, with folded arms, considering.  Gilles had the wit to be silent; the girl fought for breath.  Richard, in fact, was touched to the heart, and capable of any sacrifice which could seem the equivalent of this.  He must always lead, even in magnanimity; but it was a better thing than emulation moved him now.  When he next turned with a calm, true face to Jehane there was not a shred of the Angevin in him; all was burnt away.

‘What is the name of this knight, Jehane?’ She told him, Gilles de Gurdun.

Then he said, ‘Come hither, De Gurdun,’ and Gilles knelt down before the son of his overlord.  Jehane would have knelt to him too, but that he held her by the hand and would not suffer it.

‘Now, Gilles, listen to what I shall tell you,’ said Richard.  ’There is no lady in the world more noble than this one, and no man living who means more faithfully by her than I. I will do her will this day, and that speedily, lest the devil be served.  Are you a true man, Gilles?’

‘Lord,’ said Gurdun, ’I try to be so.  Your father made me a knight.  I have loved this lady since she was twelve years old.’

‘Are you a man of substance, my friend?’

’We have a good fief, my lord.  My father holds of the Church of Rouen, and the Church of the Duke.  I serve with a hundred spears where I may, a routier if nothing better offer.’

‘If I give you Jehane, what do you give me?’