To-day I went out to slay him, and he led me, his murderer,
to the fairest lady earth may boast. Do you not think that, in
returning good for evil, this fox was a true Christian, my Princess?"
Katharine said: "I lament his destruction. Farewell, Messire Alain!
And since chance brought you hither--"
"Destiny brought me hither," Alain affirmed, a mastering hunger in his
eyes. "Destiny has been kind; I shall make a prayer to her that she
continue so." But when Katharine demanded what this prayer would be,
Alain shook his tawny head. "Presently you shall know, Highness, but
not now. I return to Chateauneuf on certain necessary businesses;
to-morrow I set out at cockcrow for Milan and the Visconti's livery.
Farewell!" He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight, the
hounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was fastened in his hat. Thus
Tristran de Leonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall,
thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him.
She went to her apartments, singing an inane song about the amorous
and joyful time of spring when everything and everybody is happy,--
"El tems amoreus plein de joie,
El tems ou tote riens s'esgaie,--"
and burst into a sudden passion of tears.
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