ill read in the book of Messer Marco Polo, was become
a famous man in the city, and strangers resorted to his house to hear
his tales and see his treasures. From him St. Pol learned of the dead
knight, and, reading the cognisance on the ring, knew the fate of his
friend. On his return journey he bore the relic to Louis at Paris,
who venerated it as the limb of a saint; and thereafter took it to
Beaumanoir, where the Lady Alix kissed it with proud tears. The arm in
a rich casket she buried below the chapel altar, and the ring she wore
till her death.

CHAPTER 5. THE MAID

The hostel of the Ane Raye poured from its upper and lower windows
a flood of light into the gathering August dusk. It stood, a little
withdrawn among its beeches, at a cross-roads, where the main route
southward from the Valois cut the highway from Paris to Rheims and
Champagne. The roads at that hour made ghostly white ribbons, and the
fore-court of dusty grasses seemed of a verdure which daylight would
disprove. Weary horses nuzzled at a watertrough, and serving-men in a
dozen liveries made a bustle around the stables, which formed two
sides of the open quadrangle. At the foot of the inn signpost beggars
squatted--here a leper whining monotonously, there lustier vagrants
dicing for supper. At the main door a knot of young squires stood
talking in whispers--impatient, if one judged from the restless clank of
metal, but on duty, as appeared when a new-comer sought entrance and was
brusquely denied. For in an upper room there was business of great folk,
and the commonalty must keep its distance.

That upper room was long and low-ceiled, with a canopied bed in a corner
and an oaken table heaped with saddle-bags. A woman sat in a chair by
the empty hearth, very bright and clear in the glow of the big iron
lantern hung above the chimney. She was a tall girl, exquisitely
dressed, from the fine silk of her horned cap to the amethyst buckles
on her Spanish shoes. The saddle-bags showed that she was fresh from a
journey, but her tirewoman's hands must have been busy, for she bore no
marks of the road.

Her chin was in her hands, and the face defined by the slim fingers was
small and delicate, pale with the clear pallor of perfect health, and
now slowly flushing to some emotion. The little chin was firm, but the
mouth was pettish. Her teeth bit on a gold chain, which encircled her
neck and held a crystal reliquary. A spoiled pretty child, she looked,
a