From serving in a Catholic land I knew the customs of the Mother Church.  So I could see the priest in cassock, alb and stole as he would stand before some makeshift altar lit with candles.  And as he stands they come to kneel before him; my winsome Margery in all her royal beauty, a child to love, and yet an empress peerless in her woman’s realm; and at her side, with his knee touching hers, this man who was a devil!

What wonder if I cursed and choked and cursed again when the maddening thought of what all this should mean for my poor wounded Richard—­and later on, for Margery herself—­possessed me?  In which of these hot fever-gusts of rage the thought of interference came, I know not.  But that it came at length—­a thought and plan full-grown at birth—­I do know.

The pointing of the plan was desperate and simple.  It was neither more nor less than this:  I knew the house and every turn and passage in it, and when the hour should strike I said I should go down and skulk among the guests, and at the crucial moment find or seize a weapon and fling myself upon this bridegroom as he should kneel before the altar.

With strength to bend him back and strike one blow, I saw not why it might not win.  And as for strength, I have learned this in war:  that so the rage be hot enough ’twill nerve a dying man to hack and hew and stab as with the strength of ten.

Although it was most terribly over-long in coming, the end of that black day did come at last, and with it Darius to fetch my supper and the candles.  You may be sure I questioned him, and, if you know the blacks, you’ll smile and say I had my labor for my pains—­the which I had.  His place was at the quarters, and of what went on within the house he knew no more than I. But this he told me; that company surely was expected, and that some air of mystery was abroad.

When he was gone I ate a soldier’s portion, knowing of old how ill a thing it is to take an empty stomach into battle.  For the same cause I drank a second cup of wine,—­’twas old madeira of my father’s laying-in,—­and would have drunk a third but that the bottle would not yield it.

It was fully dark when I had finished, and, thinking ever on my plan, would strive afresh to weld its weakest link.  This was the hazard of the weapon-getting.  With full-blood health and strength I might have gone bare-handed; but as it was, I feared to take the chance.  So with a candle I went a-prowling in the deep drawers of the old oaken clothes-press and in the escritoire which once had been my mother’s, and found no weapon bigger than a hairpin.

It was no great disappointment, for I had looked before with daylight in the room.  Besides, the wine was mounting, and when the search was done the hazard seemed the less.  So I could rush upon him unawares and put my knee against his back, I thought the Lord of Battles would give me strength to break his neck across it.