"Of this your husband is an example. Poor, deserving workman, he is
killing himself and gaining nought in return. Heaven has had no time
to look after him. But I, though rather jealous of him, still love my
kind host. I pity him: his strength is going, he can bear up no
longer. He will die, like your children, already dead of misery. This
winter he was ill; what will become of him the next?"

Thereon, her face in her hands, she wept two, three hours, and even
more. And when she had poured out all her tears--her bosom still
throbbing hard--the other said, "I ask nothing: only, I pray, save
him."

She had promised nothing, but from that hour she became his.

CHAPTER V.

POSSESSION.

A dreadful age was the age of gold; for thus do I call that hard time
when gold first came into use. This was in the year 1300, during the
reign of that Fair King[29] who never spake a word; the great king who
seemed to have a dumb devil, but a devil with mighty arm, strong
enough to burn the Temple, long enough to reach Rome, and with glove
of iron to deal the first good blow at the Pope.

[29] Philip the Fair of France, who put down the Templar in
Paris, and first secured the liberties of the Gallican
Church.--TRANS.

Gold thereupon becomes a great pope, a mighty god, and not without
cause. The movement began in Europe with the Crusades: the only wealth
men cared for was that which having wings could lend itself to their
enterprise; the wealth, namely, of swift exchanges. To strike blows
afar off the king wants nothing but gold. An army of gold, a fiscal
army, spreads over all the land. The lord, who has brought back with
him his dreams of the East, is always longing for its wonders, for
damascened armour, carpets, spices, valuable steeds. For all such
things he needs gold. He pushes away with his foot the serf who
brings him corn. "That is not all; I want gold!"

On that day the world was changed. Theretofore in the midst of much
evil there had always been a harmless certainty about the tax.
According as the year was good or bad, the rent followed the course of
nature and the measure of the harvest. If the lord said, "This is
little," he was answered, "My lord, Heaven has granted us no more."

But the gold, alas! where shall we find it? We have no army to seize
it in the towns of Flanders. Where shall we dig the ground to win him
his treasure? Oh, that the spirit of hidden treasures would be our
guide![30]