“Yes.  I see I had better unfold all to thee in detail, from the beginning of my wanderings.  After I had fled from my father’s wrath, I first went to sunny Provence, where I found friends in the great family of the Montforts, and won the friendship of a man who has since become famous, the Earl of Leicester.  A distant kinswoman of theirs, a cousin many times removed, effaced from my heart the fickle damsel who had been the cause of my disgrace in England.  Poor Eveline!  Never was there sweeter face or sunnier disposition!  Had she lived all had been well.  I had not then gone forth, abandoned to my own sinful self.  But she died in giving birth to my Hubert.”

“Thy son, doth he yet live?”

“I left him in the care of Simon de Montfort, and went forward to the rendezvous of the crusaders, the Isle of Malta, where, being grievously insulted by a Frenchman—­during a truce of God, which had been proclaimed to the whole army—­forgot all but my hot blood, struck him, thereby provoked a combat, and slew him, for which I was expelled the host, and forbidden to share in the holy war.

“So I sailed thence to Sicily—­in deep dejection, repenting, all too late, my ungovernable spirit.

“It was in the Isle of Sicily that an awful judgment befell me, which has pursued me ever since, until it has blanched my locks with gray, and hollowed out these wrinkles on my brow.

“I had taken up my quarters at an inn, and was striving in vain to drown my remorse in utter recklessness, in wine and mirth, when one night, as I lay half unconscious in bed, I heard the door open.  I started up and laid my hand on my sword, but melted into a sweat of fear as I saw the ghost of him I had slain, standing as if in life, his hand upon the wound my blade had made.

“‘Nay,’ said he, ’mortal weapons harm me not now, but see that thou fulfil for me the vow I have made.  Carry my sword in person or by proxy to Jerusalem, and lay it on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre.  Then I forgive thee my death.’

“The vision disappeared, but left me impressed with a sense that it was real and no dream.  Hence I dared to return to Malta, and telling my story begged, but begged in vain, to be allowed to carry the sword of the man I had slain through the campaign.

“I could not even obtain the sword.  It had been sent back to hang by the side of the rusty weapons his ancestors had once borne, in the hall of their distant Chateau de Fievrault.

“I returned to Provence, revisited the tomb of my Eveline, saw my boy, sought absolution, made many prayers, but could not shake off the phantom.  It was on a Friday I slew my foe, and on each Friday night he appeared.  The young Simon de Montfort was about to form another band of crusaders, and he allowed me to accompany him, with the result I have described.  During my stay in the monastery at Acre the phantom troubled me not, and as I have already said, I would fain have remained there, but when they heard my tale they bade me return and fulfil my duties to my kindred, and stir up others to come to the aid of the Holy Land, since I was physically incapable of ever bearing arms again.