“They say the Host was carried to her through the air from Calais, Chris, when the King was there.  Did you hear her speak of that?”

Chris shook his head.

“There was not time,” he said.

“And then there was the matter of the divorce—­” Nicholas turned his head slightly; “Ralph cannot hear us, can he?  Well—­the matter of the divorce—­I hear she denounced that, and would have none of it, and has written to the Pope, too.”

“They were saying something of the kind,” said Chris, “but I thought it best not to meddle.”

“And what did she say to you?”

Chris told him the story, and Nicholas’s eyes grew round and fixed as he listened; his mouth was a little open, and he murmured inarticulate comments as they rode together up from the mill.

“Lord!” he said at last, “and she said all that about hell.  God save us!  And her tongue out of her mouth all the while!  And did you see anything yourself?  No devils or angels?”

“I saw nothing,” said Chris.  “I just listened, but she saw them.”

“Lord!” said Nicholas again, and rode on in profound silence.

The Maxwells were to stay to supper at the Court; and drive home afterwards; so there was no opportunity for Chris to go down and bathe in the lake as he usually did in summer after a day’s hunting, for supper was at seven o’clock, and he had scarcely more than time to dress.

Nicholas was very talkative at supper, and poured out all that Chris had told him, with his usual lack of discretion; for the other had already told the others once all the details that he thought would interest them.

“They were talking about the divorce,” he broke out, and then stopped and eyed Ralph craftily; “but I had better not speak of that here—­eh, Chris?”

Ralph looked blandly at his plate.

“Chris did not mention that,” he said.  “Tell us, Nick.”

“No, no,” cried Nicholas.  “I do not want you to go with tales to town.  Your ears are too quick, my friend.  Then there was that about the Host flying from Calais, eh, Chris?  No, no; you said you had heard nothing of that.”

Chris looked up and his face was a little flushed.

“No, Nick,” he said.

“There seems to have been a great deal that Chris did not tell us—­” began Ralph.

Sir James glanced swiftly from his seat under the canopy.

“He told us all that was needed,” he said.

“Aha!” broke out Nicholas again, “but the Holy Maid said that the King would not live six months if he—­”

Chris’s face was full of despair and misery, and his father interrupted once more.

“We had better not speak of that, my son,” he said to Nicholas.  “It is best to leave such things alone.”

Ralph was smiling broadly with tight lips by now.

“By my soul, Nick, you are the maddest wind-bag I have ever heard.  All our heads might go for what you have said to-night.  Thank God the servants are gone.”