“Of that you may well assure yourself, Tresham; my commandery is not far from Genoa, and I was frequently with her, but never without her drawing me aside and asking me if I had heard any news of you, and talking over with me the chances there might be of your escape.  I can tell you that there are not a few young nobles of Genoa who would give much to be allowed as you are to carry her gage, or wear her colours.  You should see her now; you would scarce know her again, so altered and improved is she; there is no fairer face in all Italy.”

“I hope some day to meet her again, " Gervaise replied; “although I own to knowing it were better that I should not do so.  Until she gave me her gage I had scarcely noticed her.  I have, as you know, no experience of women, and had so much on my mind at the time, what with the fuss they were making about us, and the question of getting the prizes here, that in truth I paid but slight attention to the fair faces of the dames of Genoa.  But the gracious and earnest way in which, though scarce more than a child, she gave me her gage, and vowed that no other knight should possess one so long as I lived, struck me so greatly that I own I gave the matter much more thought than was right or becoming in one of our Order.  The incident was much more gratifying to me than all the honour paid me by the Republic, and during the long months of my captivity it has recurred to me so frequently that I have in vain endeavoured to chase it from my thoughts, as sinful thus to allow myself constantly to think of any woman.  Do not mistake me, Sir Fabricius.  I am speaking to you as to a confessor, and just as I have kept her amulet hidden from all, so is the thought of her a secret I would not part with for my life.  I do not for a moment deceive myself with the thought that, beyond the fact that her gift has made her feel an interest in me and my fate, she has any sentiment in the matter:  probably, indeed, she looks back upon the gift as a foolish act of girlish enthusiasm that led her into making a promise that she now cannot but find unpleasantly binding; for it is but natural that among the young nobles of her own rank and country there must be some whom she would see with pleasure wearing her colours.”

Caretto looked at him with some amusement.

“Were you not bound by your vows as a knight of the Order, how would you feel in the matter?”

“I should feel worse,” Gervaise said, without hesitation.  “I have oftentimes thought that over, and I see that it is good for me I am so bound.  It does not decrease my chances, for, as I know, there are no chances; but it renders it more easy for me to know that it is so.”

“But why should you say that you have no chances, Tresham?”

“Because it is easy to see that it is so.  I am, save for my commandery and prospects in the Order, a penniless young knight, without home or estate, without even a place in my country, and that country not hers.  I know that it is not only sinful, but mad, for me to think so frequently of her, but at least I am not mad enough to think that I can either win the heart or aspire to the hand of one who is, you say, so beautiful, and who is, moreover, as I know, the heiress to wide estates.”