He was very polite, but it was plain he thought her a quack. “It would not become me,” he said, “to apply to a simple maiden for the relief which all the learned doctors cannot give me.” “Heaven uses weak instruments sometimes,” said Helena, and she declared that she would forfeit her life if she failed to make him well. “And if you succeed?” questioned the King. “Then I will ask your Majesty to give me for a husband the man whom I choose!” So earnest a young lady could not be resisted forever by a suffering king. Helena, therefore, became the King's doctor, and in two days the royal cripple could skip. He summoned his courtiers, and they made a glittering throng in the throne room of his palace. Well might the country girl have been dazzled, and seen a dozen husbands worth dreaming of among the handsome young noblemen before her. But her eyes only wandered till they found Bertram. Then she went up to him, and said, “I dare not say I take you, but I am yours!” Raising her voice that the King might hear, she added, “This is the Man!” “Bertram,” said the King, “take her; she's your wife!” “My wife, my liege?” said Bertram. “I beg your Majesty to permit me to choose a wife.” “Do you know, Bertram, what she has done for your King?” asked the monarch, who had treated Bertram like a son. “Yes, your Majesty,” replied Bertram; “but why should I marry a girl who owes her breeding to my father's charity?” “You disdain her for lacking a title, but I can give her a title,” said the King; and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came to him, and he added, “Strange that you think so much of blood when you could not distinguish your own from a beggar's if you saw them mixed together in a bowl.” “I cannot love her,” asserted Bertram; and Helena said gently, “Urge him not, your Majesty. I am glad to have cured my King for my country's sake.” “My honor requires that scornful boy's obedience,” said the King. “Bertram, make up your mind to this. You marry this lady, of whom you are so unworthy, or you learn how a king can hate. Your answer?” Bertram bowed low and said, “Your Majesty has ennobled the lady by your interest in her. I submit.” “Take her by the band,” said the King, “and tell her she is yours.” Bertram obeyed, and with little delay he was married to Helena. Fear of the King, however, could not make him a lover. Ridicule helped to sour him. A base soldier named Parolles told him to his face that now he had a “kicky-wicky” his business was not to fight but to stay at home. “Kicky-wicky” was only a silly epithet for a wife, but it made Bertram feel he could not bear having a wife, and that he must go to the war in Italy, though the King had forbidden him. Helena he ordered to take leave of the King and return to Rousillon, giving her letters for his mother and herself. He then rode off, bidding her a cold good-bye.