This Antoine Riczi came to Jehane that August twilight in the hedged garden. "King's daughter!" he sadly greeted her. "Duchess of Brittany! Countess of Rougemont! Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of Rais and of Toufon and Guerche!"
"Nay," she answered, "Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover." And in the green twilight, lit as yet by one low-hanging star alone, their lips met, as aforetime.
Presently the girl spoke. Her soft mouth was lax and tremulous, and her gray eyes were more brilliant than the star yonder. The boy's arms were about her, so that neither could be quite unhappy; and besides, a sorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, and a vast desire whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save cloudily.
"Friend," said Jehane, "I have no choice. I must wed with this de Montfort. I think I shall die presently. I have prayed God that I may die before they bring me to the dotard's bed."
Young Riczi held her now in an embrace more brutal. "Mine! mine!" he snarled toward the obscuring heavens.
"Yet it may be I must live. Friend, the man is very old. Is it wicked to think of that? For I cannot but think of his great age."
Then Riczi answered: "My desires—may God forgive me!—have clutched like starving persons at that sorry sustenance. Friend! ah, fair, sweet friend! the man is human and must die, but love, we read, is immortal. I am fain to die, Jehane. But, oh, Jehane! dare you to bid me live?"
"Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live. Friend, I crave of the Eternal Father that if I falter in my love for you I may be denied even the bleak night of ease which Judas knows." The girl did not weep; dry-eyed she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incorruptible saints. He was to remember the fact, and through long years.
For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a shrill joculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane's bridal feast.
Sang the joculatrix: