"I cannot find it in my heart to blame thee for bringing me in hopes to save thy lover," he said gently, "yet I should not have come had the message read, 'My lover needs thee,'—remember it was, 'Thy people need thee!'"
She clung to his gown.
"Nay, then, thy people do need thee. Think, will it help the people's Cause that they come to the King with hands reddened in the blood of his nobles? Remember, de Leaufort is a kinsman of the King."
"True, true," he said, "I will go, not to save thy lover. I go, but to save the people—if I can—from themselves. I cannot promise thee I shall be in time, but if word of mine can serve, there shall be no further violence."
Holding his cross high up over his head, he gazed at it an instant outlined against the flaming sun, and took a quick step forward.
"In Thy name! In Thy name! I go! I go!"
But she detained him yet an instant. Throwing herself once more before him, she bent her head low to his sandals.
"Pray for me, pray for me. To-morrow my mother's death-bed shall be mine. Remember in thy prayers poor Rose Westel."
At first he looked down upon her wildly, as if in his eagerness to go he had forgot her very existence. He heard only her prayer for remembrance. A fierce reproach swept into his eyes.
"Remember thee in my prayers? Woman, the one prayer I have known since first I set eyes on thee has been that I might forget thee!"