choice of any man throughout
all France (the princes only excepted) whom she could like for an
husband; the choice of an husband being the fee Helena demanded, if
she cured the king of his disease.

Helena did not deceive herself in the hope she conceived of the
efficacy of her father's medicine. Before two days were at an end, the
king was restored to perfect health, and he assembled all the young
noblemen of his court together, in order to confer the promised reward
of an husband upon his fair physician; and he desired Helena to look
round on this youthful parcel of noble bachelors, and choose her
husband. Helena was not slow to make her choice, for among these young
lords she saw the count Rossilion, and turning to Bertram, she said,
"This is the man. I dare not say, my lord, I take you, but I give
me and my service ever whilst I live into your guiding power." "Why
then," said the king, "young Bertram, take her; she is your wife."
Bertram did not hesitate to declare his dislike to this present of
the king's of the self-offered Helena, who, he said, was a poor
physician's daughter, bred at his father's charge, and now living a
dependent on his mother's bounty. Helena heard him speak these words
of rejection and of scorn, and she said to the king, "That you are
well, my lord, I am glad. Let the rest go." But the king would not
suffer his royal command to be so slighted; for the power of bestowing
their nobles in marriage was one of the many privileges of the kings
of France; and that same day Bertram was married to Helena, a forced
and uneasy marriage to Bertram, and of no promising hope to the poor
lady, who, though she gained the noble husband she had hazarded her
life to obtain, seemed to have won but a splendid blank, her husband's
love not being a gift in the power of the king of France to bestow.

Helena was no sooner married, than she was desired by Bertram to apply
to the king for him for leave of absence from court; and when she
brought him the king's permission for his departure, Bertram told her
that as he was not prepared for this sudden marriage, it had much
unsettled him, and therefore she must not wonder at the course he
should pursue. If Helena wondered not, she grieved, when she found
it was his intention to leave her. He ordered her to go home to his
mother. When Helena heard this unkind command, she replied, "Sir, I
can nothing say to this, but that I am your most obedient servant, and
shall ever