d requested me as the
friend who gave her to me. I could do no otherwise, and I thought it
would be but a matter of a few days, and that our original marriage was
the only important one.'

'Have you any parchment to prove it?'

'No, sir. It passed but as a ceremony to satisfy the Queen's scruples
ere she gave my wife to me to take home. I even think the King was
displeased at her requiring it.'

'Was Mr. Sidney a witness?'

'No, sir. None was present, save the King and Queen, her German
countess, and the German priest.'

'The day?'

'Lammas-day.'

'The 1st of August of the year of grace 1572. I will write to Walsingham
to obtain the testimony, if possible, of king or of priest; but belike
they will deny it all. It was part of the trick. Shame upon it that a
king should dig pits for so small a game as you, my poor lad!'

'Verily, my Lord,' said Berenger, 'I think the King meant us kindly,
and would gladly have sped us well away. Methought he felt his bondage
bitterly, and would fain have dared to be a true king. Even at the last,
he bade me to his _garde-robe_, and all there were unhurt.'

'And wherefore obeyed you not?'

'The carouse would have kept me too late for our flight.'

'King's behests may not lightly be disregarded,' said the old courtier,
with a smile. 'However, since he showed such seeming favour to you,
surely you might send a petition to him privately, through Sir Francis
Walsingham, to let the priest testify to your renewal of contract,
engaging not to use it to his detriment in France.'

'I will do so, sir. Meanwhile,' he added, as one who felt he had earned
a right to be heard in his turn, 'I have your permission to hasten to
bring home my wife?'

Lord Walwyn was startled at this demand from one still so far from
recovered as Berenger. Even this talk, eager as the youth was, had
not been carried on without much difficulty, repetitions, and altered
phrases, when he could not pronounce distinctly enough to be understood
and the effort brought lines of pain into his brow. He could take little
solid food, had hardly any strength for walking or riding; and, though
all his wounds were whole, except that one unmanageable shot in the
mouth, he looked entirely unfit to venture on a long journey in the very
country that had sent him home a year before scarcely alive. Lord Walwyn
had already devised what he thought a far more practicable arrangement;
namely, to send Mr. Adderley and some of my Lad