‘Have you any parchment to prove it?’

’No, sir.  It passed but as a ceremony to satisfy the Queen’s scruples ere she gave my wife to me to take home.  I even think the King was displeased at her requiring it.’

‘Was Mr. Sidney a witness?’

’No, sir.  None was present, save the King and Queen, her German countess, and the German priest.’

‘The day?’

‘Lammas-day.’

’The 1st of August of the year of grace 1572.  I will write to Walsingham to obtain the testimony, if possible, of king or of priest; but belike they will deny it all.  It was part of the trick.  Shame upon it that a king should dig pits for so small a game as you, my poor lad!’

‘Verily, my Lord,’ said Berenger, ’I think the King meant us kindly, and would gladly have sped us well away.  Methought he felt his bondage bitterly, and would fain have dared to be a true king.  Even at the last, he bade me to his garde-robe, and all there were unhurt.’

‘And wherefore obeyed you not?’

‘The carouse would have kept me too late for our flight.’

‘King’s behests may not lightly be disregarded,’ said the old courtier, with a smile.  ’However, since he showed such seeming favour to you, surely you might send a petition to him privately, through Sir Francis Walsingham, to let the priest testify to your renewal of contract, engaging not to use it to his detriment in France.’

‘I will do so, sir.  Meanwhile,’ he added, as one who felt he had earned a right to be heard in his turn, ’I have your permission to hasten to bring home my wife?’

Lord Walwyn was startled at this demand from one still so far from recovered as Berenger.  Even this talk, eager as the youth was, had not been carried on without much difficulty, repetitions, and altered phrases, when he could not pronounce distinctly enough to be understood and the effort brought lines of pain into his brow.  He could take little solid food, had hardly any strength for walking or riding; and, though all his wounds were whole, except that one unmanageable shot in the mouth, he looked entirely unfit to venture on a long journey in the very country that had sent him home a year before scarcely alive.  Lord Walwyn had already devised what he thought a far more practicable arrangement; namely, to send Mr. Adderley and some of my Lady’s women by sea, under the charge of Master Hobbs, a shipmaster at Weymouth, who traded with Bordeaux for wine, and could easily put in near La Sablerie, and bring off the lady and child, and, if she wished it, the pastor to whom such a debt of gratitude was owing.

Berenger was delighted with the notion of the sea rather than the land journey; but he pointed out at once that this would remove all objection to his going in person.  He had often been out whole nights with the fishermen, and knew that a sea-voyage would be better for his health than anything,—­certainly better than pining and languishing at home, as he had done for months.  He could not bear to think of separation from Eustacie an hour longer than needful; nay, she had been cruelly entreated enough already; and as long as he could keep his feet, it was absolutely due to her that he should not let others, instead of himself, go in search of her.  It would be almost death to him to stay at home.