The Countess fixed her keen black eyes on her old attendant.
“The which means,” said she, “that the matter has too much ado with me that I should be suffered to know the inwards thereof. Perrote, was it that man essayed once more to free me? Thou mayest well tell me, for I know it. The angels whispered it to me as I lay in my bed.”
“My dear Lady, it was thus. Pray you, be not troubled: if so were, should you be any better off than now?”
“Mary, Mother!” With that wail of pain the Countess turned back to her toilet. “Who was it? and how? Tell me what thou wist.”
Perrote considered a moment, and then answered the questions.
“Your Grace hath mind of the two pedlars that came hither a few days gone?”
“One of whom sold yon violet twist, the illest stuff that ever threaded needle? He had need be ’shamed of himself. Ay: well?”
“Dame, he was no pedlar at all, but Sir Roland de Pencouet, a knight of Bretagne.”
“Ha! one of Oliver Clisson’s following, or I err. Ay?”
A look of intense interest had driven out the usual weary listlessness in the black eyes.