"I thank you, Messire," murmured Lenora, who was making a great effort to swallow her tears.
"Then I pray you dry your eyes," he pleaded, "I would be so ashamed if Jeanne saw that I had made you cry."
She looked up and even in the gloom he thought that he could see a swift smile pass across her face.
"To-morrow an you desire," he continued more lightly, "your old dragon Inez shall be here to wait on you, until then I trust that you will not feel too lonely, away from those you care for. My mother is an angel. You will love her, I think, and my brother Laurence is learned and well-read ... my father too is kind. We will all strive, Madonna, to make you somewhat more contented with your lot."
"You mistake, Messire," she stammered, "I..."
But already he had bowed before her and bidden her a formal good-night. She had meant to give him her hand and to ask his forgiveness, for indeed she had behaved like an ill-tempered child--a bad beginning for the role which she had sworn to play--but he had gone, and before she could call him back he was speeding down the corridor and anon she heard him loudly calling to Jeanne.
III
Lenora did not see her husband during the whole of the next day, and on the one occasion when she ventured to ask after him--with well-feigned indifference lest any one guessed that all was not well between them--Clémence van Rycke sighed, Messire the High-Bailiff gave a forced laugh and Laurence van Rycke frowned with obvious anger. And in the evening--when she retired to her room and felt strangely irritable and hurt at being left in such solitude--she questioned Inez, who had been allowed to come and wait on her and who had a marvellous faculty for gleaning all the gossip that was going about the town.
"They do say, my angel," said the old woman with that complacency which characterises your true gossip, "that Messire Mark van Rycke hath spent his whole day in the tavern opposite. It is known as the 'Three Weavers,' and many Spanish officers are quartered in there now."
"Heaven protect us!" ejaculated Lenora involuntarily, "I trust they did not quarrel."