Bertram looked across at his wife with a smile.
“Must we tell him, Dame?”
“I think we may, husband.”
“Then know, Lord James de Audley, that you have asked more than you wist. This maid is no daughter of mine. Wedding her, you should wed not Nell Lyngern, a poor knight’s daughter; but the Lady Alianora de Holand, Countess of Kent, of the royal line, whose mother was daughter unto a son of King Edward. Now what say you?”
The young man’s face changed painfully.
“Sir, I thank you,” he said in a low voice. “I am no man fit to mate with the blood royal. Lady Countess, I cry you mercy for mine ignorance and mine unwisdom.”
“Tarry yet a moment, Lord de Audley,” said Bertram, smiling again; for the girl’s colour came and went, the distaff trembled in her hand, and her eyes sought his with a look of troubled entreaty. “Well, Nell?—speak out, maiden mine!”
“Father!” she said in an agitated voice, “he loved Nell Lyngern!”
“Come, Lord James,” said Bertram, laughing, “methinks you be not going empty away. God bless you, man and maid!—only, good knight and true, see thou leave not to love Nell Lyngern.”
The picture fades away, and another comes on the scene.