Yet it was less strange to these Christian girls than it would be to the reader. They lived in times when the hand of an heiress was entirely at the disposal of her guardian, who might marry her to some one whom she had never seen. As to widows, they were in the gift of the Crown, unless they chose (as many did) to make themselves safe by paying a high price for "liberty to marry whom they would." Even then, such a thing was known as the Crown disregarding the compact. Let it be added, since much good cannot be said of King John, that he at least was careful to fulfil his engagements of this description. His son was less particular. Margaret looked at Belasez with a rather curious expression. "And how dost thou like the idea," she asked, "of being wife to one whom thou hast never seen?" "I do not think about it," said Belasez, in the same tone as before. "What is to be will be." "But what is to be," said Margaret, "may be very delightful, or it may be very horrid." "Yes, no doubt," was the cool answer. "I shall see when the time comes." Margaret turned away, with a shrug of her shoulders and a comic look in her eyes which nearly upset the gravity of the rest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. These lines are (or were) to be seen, written with a diamond upon a pane of glass in a window of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa, Belgium, with the date 1793. I do not know whether they are to be found in the writings of any poet. CHAPTER SIX. THE NEW CONFESSOR. "Had the knight looked up to the page's face, No smile the word had won; Had the knight looked up to the page's face, I ween he had never gone: Had the knight looked back to the page's geste, I ween he had turned anon,-- For dread was the woe in the face so young, And wild was the silent geste that flung Casque, sword, to earth as the boy down-sprung, And stood--alone, alone!" _Elizabeth Barrett Browning_. Nobody enjoyed the spring of the year 1236. Rain poured down, day after day, as if it were the prelude to a second Deluge. The Thames overflowed its banks to such an extent that the lawyers had to return home in boats, floated by the tide into Westminster Hall. There was no progress, except by boat or horse, through the streets of the royal borough.