' I answered, 'I do not
know you.' 'I am Youth' he said; 'take back your weapon.'"
"It is true," she responded, "it is lamentably true that after
to-night we are as different persons, you and I."
He said: "Jehane, do you not love me any longer? Remember old years
and do not break your oath with me, Jehane, since God abhors nothing
so much as unfaith. For your own sake, Jehane,--ah, no, not for your
sake nor for mine, but for the sake of that blithe Jehane, whom, so
you tell me, time has slain!"
Once or twice she blinked, as if dazzled by a light of intolerable
splendor, but otherwise she stayed rigid. "You have dared, messire, to
confront me with the golden-hearted, clean-eyed Navarrese that once
was I! and I requite." The austere woman rose. "Messire, you swore to
me, long since, eternal service. I claim my right in domnei.
Yonder--gray-bearded, the man in black and silver--is the Earl of
Worcester, the King of England's ambassador, in common with whom the
wealthy dowager of Brittany has signed a certain contract. Go you,
then, with Worcester into England, as my proxy, and in that island, as
my proxy, become the wife of the King of England.
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