The shouting and the tumult had sunk to silence.
"You give me leave," said Herrick, and at a sign from him a priest mounted the dais, and stood by the chair. Almost before the crowd realized what he was doing, he had put to Maurice the three questions of the civil coronation.
Then Maurice turned toward that sea of faces.
"My lords, and men of Vayenne," he said, and his voice was firm and clear, "before you question me, hear me for a moment. If you accept me as Duke, and I have claimed the right by my birth, you call me to a position that I, of all the Dukes who have ever reigned in Montvilliers, shall find most difficult to fill. I cannot hope to fill the place of Roger Herrick. I would most willingly have stood among you and shouted his name with you; but as that may not be, I promise you that I will endeavor to rule by the example he has set. Help me, friends, to make this land worthy of the Duke it loses to-day."
The simple and boyish appeal had its effect, and if the shouting was not so spontaneous, so enthusiastic as it had been, it was genuine.
"Now question me as you will," he said.
No voice broke the silence, and after a long pause Maurice went slowly to the chair, and seated himself, and the priest placed the golden circle upon his head, commanding that he should presently wear the iron crown in St. Etienne.
Christine had sat leaning eagerly forward in her chair, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. So this was the Duke's purpose. He was voluntarily giving up everything to her cousin Maurice. She had, in fact, brought Maurice to Vayenne to be crowned, even as she had set out to do when she made that other journey to Passey. Yet now, although her lips uttered no sound, in her heart she shouted with that great crowd that Montvilliers could have no other ruler but Duke Roger. Everything about her seemed vague and unreal, only that one commanding figure stood clearly before her. Not once, so far as she could tell, had he glanced in her direction; yet a special place had been prepared for her, he must know that she was there.
As the golden circle was placed on Maurice's head Herrick descended the dais, but paused on the lower steps, and once more turned to the crowd.
"Comrades, before I come among you, and with you swear submission to the Duke, grant me one favor."