“Your alarm is groundless,” observed Richmond gallantly. “The presence of two beings, fair and pure as yourself and the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, would scare away aught of evil.”
The Lady Mary thanked him with a beaming smile, but the Fair Geraldine could not suppress a slight laugh.
“Your grace is highly flattering,” she said. “But, with all faith in beauty and purity, I should place most reliance in a relic I possess—the virtue of which has often been approved against evil spirits. It was given by a monk—who had been sorely tempted by a demon, and who owed his deliverance to it—to my ancestor, Luigi Geraldi of Florence; and from him it descended to me.”
“Would I had an opportunity of proving its efficacy!” exclaimed the Earl of Surrey.
“You shall prove it, if you choose,” rejoined the Fair Geraldine. “I will give you the relic on condition that you never part with it to friend or foe.”
And detaching a small cross of gold, suspended by a chain from her neck, she presented it to the Earl of Surrey.
“This cross encloses the relic,” she continued; “wear it, and may it protect you from all ill!”
Surrey's pale cheek glowed as he took the gift. “I will never past with it but with life,” he cried, pressing the cross to his lips, and afterwards placing it next his heart.
“I would have given half my dukedom to be so favoured,” said Richmond moodily.
And quitting the little group, he walked towards the Lady Anne. “Henry,” said the Lady Mary, taking her brother aside, “you will lose your friend.”