“Leoline’s lips trembled with the name of her absent lover, Charles.
“But a certain recollection of his coldness stifled even her anxiety.
“Edward hastened to forestall her question.
“‘My brother is well,’ he said, ‘and is now sojourning at Calais; he lingered there so long that the war terminated without his aid. Doubtless he will soon return; a week, nay, a day might restore him to you, fair Leoline.’
“Leoline was much consoled.
“Yet something seemed untold.
“‘Why was he so eager for the strife, and to serve the king against the French, if Charles had thus tarried at Calais so long?’ she thought.
“She wondered at this, but did not dare to search farther into her heart.
“The generous Edward concealed from her that his brother led a life of the most reckless and indolent dissipation, wasting his wealth in the pleasures of the reckless and gay, and only occupying his ambition with travelling and gambling, and whatever else that was useless and inglorious.
“Edward and Leoline resumed their old friendship, and Leoline believed that it was friendship alone.