'All this afternoon I have wrestled with a woman to make her say that you are older than your age, and precontracted to a cousin of yours. I have made her say it at last, so your life is saved.'
She turned half to go from him, but he ran round in front of her.
'Your life is saved!' he said desperately, 'for if you were precontracted to Dearham your marriage with me is void. And if your marriage with me is void, though it be proved against you that you were false to me, yet it is not treason, for you are not my wife.'
Again she moved to circumvent him, and again he came before her.
'Speak!' he said, 'speak!' But she folded her lips close. He cast his arms abroad in a passion of despair. 'You shall be put away into a castle where you shall have such state as never empress had yet. All your will I will do. Always I will live near you in secret fashion.'
'I will not be your leman,' she said.
'But once you offered it!' he answered.
'Then you appeared in the guise of a king!' she said.
He withered beneath her tone.
'All you would have you shall have,' he said. 'I will call in a messenger and here and now send the letter that you wot of to Rome.'