“Sir,” he said, drying his eyes, “I have been sore troubled.”
“Ah, my friend,” sighed Guillem, “your concern was occasioned by my happiness.”
Clad in breeches and shirt, he took his place once more in the window, throwing over his shoulders a mantle of vair trimmed with gris. The tower stood to the right, and naught could turn Guillem from it, while putting on his shoes—elegant buskins fashioned at Douai.
He called for his ewer. Then, when he had washed, he laced up his sleeves with a silver bodkin. Over all he passed a cape of black silk, and studied carefully the figure he made.
As he was thus occupied, his host entered to lead him to the church. There Guillem, kneeling at the altar of Saint Clement, prayed devoutly to God, as also to Mary, to Michael, and to all the saints, to aid him. Then, taking a psalter, he opened it. Straight way he came upon a verse which filled him with delight: “Dilexi quoniam.”
“God knows well what I desire,” he exclaimed, closing the book. He made careful note of the place where his lady would sit, and prayed that naught might keep her from coming.
When it was time for mass, Guillem took his place, with his host, in the choir, where he could look out through a little opening, without being seen. His heart beat loudly as he awaited the arrival of Flamenca; and, at each shadow that fell across the doorway, he thought Archambaut was about to enter.
Everyone else had arrived, and the third bell had rung, when the jealous husband, uncouth and unkempt, entered the church. Beside him, but keeping well her distance, for it was clear he filled her with disgust, came Flamenca.
She paused an instant on the threshold, to make her reverence, and then it was, for the first time, that Guillem saw his lady. He ceased to gaze upon her only when she passed behind her screen. Then he knelt with the others.
“Asperges me,” proclaimed the priest. Guillem took up the response at the “Domine,” and sang it clear through. Never before had it been so well sung in that church.