lf am not unknown. Did I desire honours, in Italy I might seek them;
it is not so. I crave no guerdon for the service I proffer; none but
this--leisure and books in the Convent of Bec."

"Sit down--nay, sit, man," said William, greatly interested, but still
suspicious. "One riddle only I ask thee to solve, before I give thee all
my trust, and place my very heart in thy hands. Why, if thou desirest
not rewards, shouldst thou thus care to serve me--thou, a foreigner?" A
light, brilliant and calm, shone in the eyes of the scholar, and a blush
spread over his pale cheeks.

"My Lord Prince, I will answer in plain words. But first permit me to be
the questioner."

The priest turned towards Fitzosborne, who had seated himself on a stool
at William's feet, and, leaning his chin on his hand, listened to the
ecclesiastic, not more with devotion to his calling, than wonder at the
influence one so obscure was irresistibly gaining over his own martial
spirit, and William's iron craft.

"Lovest thou not, William Lord of Breteuil, lovest thou not fame for the
sake of fame?"

"Sur mon ame--yes!" said the Baron.

"And thou, Taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song for the sake of
song?"

"For song alone," replied the mighty minstrel. "More gold in one ringing
rhyme than in all the coffers of Christendom."

"And marvellest thou, reader of men's hearts," said the scholar, turning
once more to William, "that the student loves knowledge for the sake of
knowledge? Born of high race, poor in purse, and slight of thews,
betimes I found wealth in books, and drew strength from lore. I heard of
the Count of Rouen and the Normans, as a prince of small domain, with a
measureless spirit, a lover of letters, and a captain in war. I came to
thy duchy, I noted its subjects and its prince, and the words of
Themistocles rang in my ear: 'I cannot play the lute, but I can make a
small state great.' I felt an interest in thy strenuous and troubled
career. I believe that knowledge, to spread amongst the nations, must
first find a nursery in the brain of kings; and I saw in the deed-doer,
the agent of the thinker. In those espousals, on which with untiring
obstinacy thy heart is set, I might sympathise with thee;
perchance"--(here a melancholy smile flitted over the student's pale
lips), "perchance even as a lover: priest though I be now, and dead to
human love, once I loved, and I know what it is to strive in hope, and to
waste in