“Say not so, Sir Gervaise,” she said impetuously. “Are you not a knight on whom Genoa and Florence have bestowed their citizenship, whom the Holy Father himself has thanked, who has been honoured by Pisa, and whom Ferdinand of Naples has created a Knight of the Grand Cross of St. Michael, whom the grand master has singled out for praise among all the valiant knights of the Order of St. John, who, as my cousin tells me, saved him and the fort he commanded from capture, and who stood alone over the fallen grand master, surrounded by a crowd of foes. How can you speak of yourself as a simple knight?” Then she stopped, and sat silent for a minute, while a flush of colour mounted to her cheeks. “Give me my gage again, Sir Gervaise,” she said gently. In silence Gervaise removed it from his neck, wondering greatly what could be her intention. She turned it over and over in her hand. “Sir Knight,” she said, “this was of no great value in my eyes when I bestowed it upon you; it was a gage, and not a gift. Now it is to me of value beyond the richest gem on earth; it is a proof of the faith and loyalty of the knight I most esteem and honour, and so in giving it to you again, I part with it with a pang, for I have far greater reason to prize it than you can have. I gave it you before as a girl, proud that a knight who had gained such honour and applause should wear her favour, and without the thought that the trinket was a heart. I give it to you now as a woman, far prouder than before that you should wear her gage, and not blind to the meaning of the emblem.” Gervaise took her hand as she fastened it round his neck, and kissed it; then, still holding it, he said, “Do you know what you are doing, Claudia? You are raising hopes that I have never been presumptuous enough to cherish.” “I cannot help that,” she said softly. “There is assuredly no presumption in the hope.” He paused a moment. “You would not esteem me,” he said, holding both her hands now, “were I false to my vows. I will return to Rhodes tomorrow, and ask the grand master to forward to the Pope and endorse my petition, that I may be released from my vows to the Order. I cannot think that he or the Holy Father will refuse my request. Then, when I am free, I can tell you how I love and honour you, and how, as I have in the past devoted my life to the Order, so I will in the future devote it to your happiness.” The girl bowed her head. “'Tis right it should be so,” she said. “I have waited, feeling in my heart that the vow I had given would bind me for life, and I should be content to wait years longer if needs be. But I am bound by no vows, and can acknowledge that you have long been the lord of my life, and that so long as you wore the heart I had given you, so long would I listen to the wooing of no other.” “I fear that the Countess, your mother--” Gervaise began, but she interrupted him.