orn, and that his child may be living;
but the matter is none of mine, and my Lord is very aged, nor can a man
meddle between his wife and her father. So this I tell you that you may
make your brother lay it to heart. The sooner he is here the better,
if he be still, as I verily believe and maintain him to be, an honest
English heart that snaps his fingers at French papistry.' 'There,'
conclude Philip triumphantly, 'he knows an honest man! He's friend and
good father to you as much as ever. Heed none of the rest. He'll never
let this little rogue stand in your light.'

'as if I cared for that!' said Berenger, beginning his caged-tiger walk
again, and, though he tried to repress his anguish, breaking out at
times into fierce revilings of the cruel toils that beset him, and
despairing lamentations over those beloved ones at home, with sobs,
groans, and tears, such as Philip could not brook to witness. Both
because they were so violent and mourn-full, and because he thought them
womanish, though in effect no woman's grief could have had half that
despairing force. The _fierte_ of the French noble, however, came to
his aid. At the first sound of the great supper-bell he dashed away his
tears, composed his features, washed his face, and demanded haughtily
of Philip, whether there were any traces in his looks that the cruel
hypocrite, their jailer, could gloat over.

And with proud step and indifferent air he marched into the hall,
answered the Chevalier's polite inquiry whether the letter had brought
good tidings by coolly thanking him and saying that all at home were
well; and when he met the old man's inquiring glance out of the little
keen black bead in the puckered, withered eyelid, he put a perfectly
stony unmeaningness into his own gaze, till his eyes looked like the
blue porcelain from China so much prized by the Abbess. He even played
at chess all the evening with such concentrated attention as to be
uniformly victorious.

Yet half the night Philip heard suppressed moans and sobs--then knew
that he was on his knees--then, after long and comparatively silent
weeping, he lay down again, and from the hour when he awoke in the
morning, he returned no more to the letters; and though for some little
time more sad and dispirited, he seemed to have come to regard the
misjudgment at home as a part of the burthen he was already bearing.

That burthen was, however, pressing more heavily. The temperaments of
the two brothers