"Princes are but princes, though I grant you the Executioner's Son is a good one," answered the priest. "Well, better to marry than to burn, sayeth Holy Writ. It is touch and go, in any event. I will marry you and thereafter betake me to the Abbey of Wolgast, where dwells my very good friend the Abbot Tobias. For old sake's sake he will keep me safe there till this thing blows over."
"With my heart I thank you, my Father," said the Sparhawk, kneeling.
"Nay, do not thank me. Rather thank the pretty insistency of your mistress. Yet it is only bringing you both one step nearer destruction. Walking upon egg-shells is child's play to this. But I never could refuse your sweetheart either a comfit or an absolution all my days. To my shame as a servant of God I say it. I will go and call her in."
He went to the door with a curious smile on his face. He opened it, and there, close by the threshold, was the Princess Margaret, her eyes full of a bright mischief.
"Yes, I was listening," she cried, shaking her head defiantly. "I do not care. So would you, Father, if you had been a woman and in love——"
"God forbid!" said Father Clement, crossing himself.
"You may well make sure of heavenly happiness, my Father, for you will never know what the happiness of earth is!" cried Margaret. "I would rather be a woman and in love, than—than the Pope himself and sit in the chair of St. Peter."
"My daughter, do not be irreverent."
"Father Clement, were you ever in love? No, of course you cannot tell me; but I think you must have been. Your eyes are kind when you look at us. You are going to do what we wish—I know you are. I heard you say so to Maurice. Now begin."
"You speak as if the Holy Sacrament of matrimony were no more than saying 'Abracadabra' over a toadstool to cure warts," said the priest, smiling. "Consider your danger, the evil case in which you will put me when the thing is discovered——"