"Why did you not tell me it was not a discussion with the scamp-student?" she asked. "Why did you let me imagine that you—" Her eyes said the rest. "You should not have permitted me to—to think it," she reiterated.
He was silent. She closed her eyes; but in a moment her lashes uplifted. Her glance flashed once more upon him.
"And I should not have thought it," she said.
"Jacqueline!" he cried, starting up.
She did not answer; indeed, seemed sleeping; her face turned from him.
Through the open doorway a streak of red in the east heralded the coming glory of the morn. "Peep, peep," twittered a bird on the roof of the hovel. From the poplar it was answered by a more melodious phrase, a song of welcome to the radiant dawn. A moment the jester listened, his head raised to the growing splendor of the heavens, then threw himself on the earthen floor of the hut and was at once overcome with sleep.
CHAPTER XXII
THE TALE OF THE SWORD
The slanting rays of the sinking sun shot athwart the valley, glanced from the tile roofs of the homes of the peasantry, and illumined the lofty towers of a great manorial château. To the rider, approaching by the road that crossed the smiling pasture and meadow lands, the edifice set on a mount—another of Francis' transformations from the gloomy fortress home—appeared regal and splendid, compared with the humbler houses of the people lying prostrate before it. Viewed from afar, the town seemed to abase itself in the presence of the architectural preëminence of that monarch of buildings. Even the sun, when it withdrew its rays from the miscellaneous rabble of shops and dwellings, yet lingered proudly upon the noble structure above, caressing its imposing and august outlines and surrounding it with the glamour of the afterglow, when the sun sank to rest.