know, there are no
chances; but it renders it more easy for me to know that it is so."

"But why should you say that you have no chances, Tresham?"

"Because it is easy to see that it is so. I am, save for my commandery
and prospects in the Order, a penniless young knight, without home or
estate, without even a place in my country, and that country not hers. I
know that it is not only sinful, but mad, for me to think so frequently
of her, but at least I am not mad enough to think that I can either win
the heart or aspire to the hand of one who is, you say, so beautiful,
and who is, moreover, as I know, the heiress to wide estates."

"'There was a squire of low degree, Loved the king's daughter of
Hungarie,'" Caretto sang, with a laugh. "You are not of low degree,
but of noble family, Gervaise. You are not a squire, but a knight, and
already a very distinguished one; nor is the young lady, though she be a
rich heiress, a king's daughter."

"At any rate, the squire was not vowed to celibacy. No, no, Sir
Fabricius, it is a dream, and a pleasant one; but I know perfectly well
that it is but a dream, and one that will do me no harm so long as I
ever bear in mind that it is so. Many a knight of the Order before me
has borne a lady's gage, and carried it valiantly in many a fight, and
has been no less true to his vows for doing so."

"Upon the contrary, he has been all the better a knight, Gervaise; it
is always good for a knight, whether he belongs to the Order or not, to
prize one woman above all others, and to try to make himself worthy of
his ideal. As to the vow of celibacy, you know that ere now knights have
been absolved from their vows, and methinks that, after the service
you have rendered to Italy by ridding the sea of those corsairs, his
Holiness would make no difficulty in granting any request that you might
make him in that or any other direction. I don't know whether you are
aware that, after you sailed from here, letters came from Rome as well
as from Pisa, Florence, and Naples, expressive of the gratitude felt
for the services that you had rendered, and of their admiration for the
splendid exploit that you had performed."

"No; the grand master has had his hands so full of other matters that
doubtless an affair so old escaped his memory. Indeed, he may have
forgotten that I sailed before the letters arrived."

"Do not forget to jog his memory on the subject, for I can tell you that
the letters did not c