There you were! these English had no imagination. The
Queen snapped her fingers and said: "Very willingly will I be your wife,
my Osmund. But how do I know that I can trust you? Leicester would give
a deal for me; he would pay any price for the pious joy of burning the
Sorceress of Provence. And you are not wealthy, I suspect."
"You may trust me, mon bel esper,"--his eyes here were those of a beaten
child--"because my memory is better than yours." Messire Osmund Heleigh
gathered his papers into a neat pile. "This room is mine. To-night I
keep guard in the corridor, madame. We will start at dawn."
When he had gone, Dame Alianora laughed contentedly. "Mon bel esper! my
fairest hope! The man called me that in his verses--thirty years ago!
Yes, I may trust you, my poor Osmund."
So they set out at cockcrow. He had procured for himself a viol and a
long falchion, and had somewhere got suitable clothes for the Queen; and
in their aging but decent garb the two approached near enough to the
appearance of what they desired to be thought.
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