“Even so—the Lady Lenore—thy wife!”
“I understand thee, good Courtoise.”
The veins in the younger man’s neck and temples stood out under the strain of repression. “Comes my lord?” he asked slowly.
“In good time, Courtoise. The hagard must be fed.” Gerault would have turned away, but Courtoise, with a burst of irritation, exclaimed,—
“I will feed the creature!”
Now Gerault turned to him again: “Hast thou some strange malady or frenzy, that thou shouldst use such tones to me, boy?”
“Tones—tones, and yet again tones! Gerault—thou churl! Ay, I that have been faithful squire to thee these many years, I say it. Thou churl and worse, to have wedded with the sweetest lady ever sun shone upon, to bring her, a stranger, home to thy Castle, and then leave her there, day following day, while thou ridest over the moors to dally with some bird! All the Castle stares at the cruelty of thy neglect. Daily the demoiselles whisper together, wondering what distemper thy lady hath that thou seest her not by day—”
“Hush, boy—hush! Thou’rt surely mad!” cried out Gerault, with a note in his voice that gave Courtoise pause.
Then there fell between them a silence, heavy, and so binding that Courtoise could not move. He stood staring into his master’s face, watching the color grow from white to red and back again, and the expression change from angry amazement to something softer, something strange, something that Courtoise did not know in his lord’s face. And Gerault gnawed his lip, and bent low his head, and presently spoke, in a voice that was not his own, but was rather curiously muffled and unnatural.
“Thou sayest well, Courtoise. ’Tis true I have neglected her, poor, frail, pretty child! Ah! I had never thought how I have neglected her”; and Gerault sat suddenly down upon the step of the falcon-house and laid his head in his hands, in an attitude of such dejection that Courtoise experienced a swift rush of repentance.