"Unmaidenly?" he interrupted gently. "Nay, mademoiselle, to me, though, alas! I have known you so short a space, you must always be the embodiment of all that is most fair and lovely in womankind; but," he added, seeing that though the colour on her cheeks deepened, she had too much to say to listen to tender words, "you would fain have speech with me, mademoiselle, on a matter of much gravity, the good father saith?" Rapidly she told the tale, with every now and then a catch in her breath of sheer excitement, but when she would have gone on to what was deepest in her heart, he checked her with a little imperative gesture of command. "Nay, mademoiselle," he said firmly, "before aught else let me clear myself of this foul calumny. Ma foi! that this accursed wound prevents me from driving the lie down the dog’s throat. Pardon, mademoiselle, but it is hard for a d’Estrailles to listen to so deep an insult and yet wear his sword sheathed; but no—well I understand how matters lie—the word of a Frenchman is naught against that of a Breton whose face hath not yet been unmasked. Nay, mademoiselle, with your father there rests no blame save blindness of sight perhaps in not reading traitor in false eyes; but to you, whose pure heart hath read so truly, it were but right to tell the tale as it stands, though methinks ’tis no easy one to read in all its blackness. Yet at the battle of St Aubin du Cormier I saw that chance of which your kinsman has made so tangled a story; ’tis for you to help me to spell its meaning. The battle was over, and, as yon villain truly saith, the Prince of Orange was taken prisoner in a neighbouring wood, whilst Louis of Orleans was found wounded amongst the slain. It chanced, as we searched for other prisoners of less note, that in this self-same wood I lighted on a man who wore the black cross of Brittany struggling with a soldier of France, but as I came near the Frenchman was overcome, and the Breton knight was about to turn aside, when another, wearing the same black cross as himself, stole swiftly up behind and smote him a foul blow which caused him to fall, methinks a corpse, almost at my feet. Enraged at such treachery, I strove mightily with the murderer, inflicting, however, but a flesh wound on his left arm, and another of less import which clove his lower lip, his vizor being raised; but before I could slay or take him prisoner he dealt me a caitiff’s blow which stunned me for a moment, and before I could recover he had fled through the trees." Gwennola’s face had grown white to the lips, as d’Estrailles told his tale, but her blue eyes blazed, as she cried with a sob—