‘And, Monseigneur,’ added Malcolm, ‘I have just told the lady that I repent of having fallen from my vocation, and persecuted her.’
‘How, Sir!’ said the Bishop, turning on him; ‘do you thus lightly treat a lady of the house of Luxemburg? Beware! There are those who know how to visit an insult on a malapert lad, who meddles with the honour of the family.’
‘Be not threatened, Lord Malcolm,’ said Esclairmonde, with a gleam in her eye.
And Malcolm was Stewart enough to answer with spirit: ‘My lord, I will meet them if needed. This lady is so affianced, that it is sacrilege to aspire to her.’
‘Ah!’ said the Bishop, in an audible aside to the giggling Countess: ‘this comes of her having thrown herself at the youth’s head. Now he will no more of her.’
Crimson with wrath, and also with a wild sense of hope that the obligation had become absolute, Malcolm made a vehement incoherent exclamation; but Esclairmonde retained her composure.
‘Monseigneur and Madame both know better,’ she said. ‘This is but another menace.’
‘Peace, minion,’ said the Bishop of Thérouenne, ‘and listen to me. If this young gentleman, after professing himself willing to wed you, now draws back, so much the worse for him. But if you terrify him out of it with your humours, then will my brother St. Pol and the Duke of Burgundy soon be here, with no King of England to meddle; and by St. Adrian, Sir Boëmond will be daunted by no airs, like Monsieur there. A bride shall you be, Esclairmonde de Luxemburg, ere the week is out, if not to Monsieur de Glenuskie, to the Chevalier Boëmond de Bourgogne.’
‘Look not at me,’ said Jaqueline. ‘I am weary of your contumacy. All I shall do is to watch you well. I’ve suspected for some days that you were concocting mischief with the little Montagu; but you’ll not escape again, as when I was fool enough to help you.’
The two stood a few paces apart, where they had been discovered; Esclairmonde’s eyes were closed, her hands clasped, as if in silent prayer for aid.