Once again a nod.
'Then to bed, chatterbox!' concluded Gilles gaily, 'for to-morrow I begin my career as a low, deceitful hound, fit only for the gibbet, which I dare swear is already prepared for me!'
III
Jehan helped his master to undress. He pulled off the heavy boots and laid aside the cloth jerkin, the kerseymere trunks and worsted hose. Then, when Messire Gilles lay stretched out upon the hard paillasse, honest Jehan bade him a quiet good night and went off carrying the guttering candle. For one candle had to do duty for two customers, or even at times for three, at the hostel of 'Les Trois Rois.' These were not days of luxurious caravanserai: eight square feet of floor space, a tiny leaded window, a straw paillasse, perhaps a table and a rickety chair, made up the sum total of a furnished bedroom, if destined for a person of quality. Men like Maître Jehan had to be content with the bare boards and a horse-blanket outside their master's door, or behind a wooden partition set up inside the latter's room.
Jehan went off, then, with the candle, and Gilles de Crohin remained in almost total darkness, for the light of the moon failed to penetrate through the narrow aperture which went by the name of window. For a long time Messire Gilles lay motionless, staring into the gloom. Vague pictures seemed to flit before his gaze: the unknown girl whom he was pledged to woo appeared and disappeared before him, now walking across his line of vision with stately dignity, now dancing a wild rigadoon like some unruly country wench; but always, and with irritating persistence, wearing a mask which he longed to drag away from her face. Then he saw pictures of fair Marguerite of Navarre, imperious yet appealing, and of his own cross-hilted sword, upon the sacred emblem of which he had pledged himself to an ugly deception; Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, indolent and vapid, dressed in that ludicrous green satin suit, came and mocked him through the darkness.
Gilles de Crohin, wearied with all these phantasmagoria, began tossing restlessly upon his hard bed, and as he did so he flung his arm out over the coverlet and his hand came in rough contact with the floor. And there, close to his touch, was something soft and velvety, the drooping, fading lilies which an unknown lady of high degree had flung out to him and which he had so carelessly tossed aside. His hand closed tightly upon the flowers, crushing the last spark of life out of the fragrant blossoms, and even as he did so—quite unconsciously and mechanically—an unpleasant pang of remorse shot right through his heart. Was this unconscious act of his a presage of the cruel rôle which he had set out to play? Would the young soul of an innocent girl droop and wither beneath his careless touch?
Very gently now Gilles, turning on his side, gathered the flowers together and drew them towards him. Something of their fragrance still lingered in the bruised petals. Gilles got out of bed. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, or perhaps something of the radiance of the moonlit night had penetrated into the narrow room. Gilles could see his way about, and he remembered that in the further corner there had stood a pitcher filled with fresh water. With infinite precaution he unwound the handkerchief from around the stems and then dropped the flowers one by one into the pitcher. After awhile he picked up the handkerchief. It was nothing now but a damp and sodden little ball, but it smelt sweetly of lilies and of lavender. Gilles marvelled if the lady's initials and coronet were embroidered in the-corner. He felt with his fingers in order to make sure; but he was too inexperienced in such matters to arrive at any definite conclusion, so with a sudden impulse which he would not have cared to analyse, he searched the darkness for his doublet, and having found it he thrust the damp little rag into its breast-pocket.
Then, with a laugh at his own folly and a light shrug of the shoulders, he went back to bed. This time he fell at once into a dreamless sleep.