She paused for a moment, but when the youth bent before her with a deep sigh, and pressed her hand to his lips in token that she might depend upon him, she laid her other hand affectionately on his shoulder, and took leave of him, saying, "Aigleta will bring you the letter. Farewell, dear friend, and God go with you," and then on the threshold of the door, folding her hands after kissing the image of the Virgin on the wall, she repeated in a low voice the following prayer:
"Maires de Crist, ton filh car
Prega per nos, quens ampar
E quens gardo de cazer
A la fin en desesper."
Then she left him alone.
A day and night passed away, and yet another day and night. Geoffroy did not return.
Sir Hugo never missed him; he was, indeed, accustomed to the youth going his own way, and weeks often passed without his seeing him, and at the present time he hated the sight of any human being. He would sit for hours in one place in his room. The food carried in to him remained untouched, but he drank wine greedily, as though seeking forgetfulness from it; forgetfulness of himself, of the past, and the future.
On the evening of the first day, when Garcinde had gone to see him, he could not even face his own child, but when she approached him, and gently threw her arm over his shoulder, his whole frame was convulsed, and slipping from his chair on to the stone floor, sobbing he clasped her knees and pressed his brow against her feet, so that she had difficulty in raising him and leading him back to his couch. Since then she avoided his chamber, for if she had tried to comfort him by telling him the reason of Geoffroy's absence, her own desponding heart would have contradicted her words.