“Why?” asked Ambrose, waking from his reverie.
“Tell them your experiences in Frankfort.”
“I am not allowed to speak,” objected the monk.
“Speak, speak!” cried Cologne. “What, sir, have you had to do with this girl’s misleading?”
“I thought,” he said wistfully to his kinswoman, “that I was not to mention my visit to Frankfort unless my Lord the Archbishop brought up the subject.”
“Have you not been listening to these proceedings?” cried the girl impatiently. “The subject is brought up before three Archbishops, instead of before one. Tell their Lordships what you know of Prince Roland.”
Father Ambrose, with a deep sigh, began his recital, to which Treves and Cologne listened with ever-increasing amazement, while the sullen Mayence sat back in his chair, face imperturbable, but the thin lips closing firmer and firmer as the narrative went on.
When the monologue ended, his Reverence of Cologne was the first to speak:
“In the name of Heaven, why did you not tell me all this yesterday?”
Father Ambrose looked helplessly at his kinswoman, but made no reply.