Then the Patriarch came forward into the midst of the church, to a faldstool set there: and announced in loud tones, that all the nobles of the Council of Sybil, shortly to be crowned Queen of Jerusalem, should come forward in rotation to the faldstool, and swear between his hands[#] to bear true and faithful allegiance, as to his King, to that one of them all whom it should please her to choose for her lord. [#] Homage was always performed in this manner, the joined hands of the inferior, or oath-taker, being held between the hands of the superior lord, or person who administered the oath. One by one, they came forward: but I saw only two. Count Raymond knelt down with an air of triumphant command, as though he felt himself King already: Guy with an aspect of the most perfect quietness, as if he were thinking how he could spare Sybil. When all the nobles were sworn, the Patriarch went back to the choir, and Sybil, rising, came and stood just before the throne. The coronation ceremony followed, but I was not sufficiently at ease to enter into it. There were prayers in sonorous Greek, and incense, and the holy mass, and I cannot properly tell what else. The last item was the actual setting of the crown—the crown of all the world—on the head of Sybil of Anjou. And then came a gentle rush of intense expectation, as Sybil lifted the crown royal from her head, and prepared to descend the steps of the throne. Her choice was to be made now. Down the damask carpeting of the nave she came, very, very slowly: carrying the crown in both hands, the holy Patriarch following and swinging the holy censer behind her. Her eyes were cast down. It was evident that she knew perfectly well where he stood who was to wear that crown. Slowly, slowly, all along the nave. Past one eligible noble after another, face after face gathering blankness as she went. At last she turned, ever so little, to the right. I could bear no more. I covered my face with my mantle. Let who would gaze on me—let who would sneer! She was coming—no doubt any longer now—straight towards Count Raymond of Tripoli. And never—with the faint flush in her cheeks, and the sweet, downcast eyes—had I seen her look so beautiful. And all at once, athwart my anger, my indignation, my sense of bitter wrong, came one fervent gush of that old, deep love, which had been mine for Sybil: and I felt as though I could have laid down my life that hour to save, not Guy, but her, from the dreadful consequences of her own folly,—from that man who had crushed Guy’s heart as he might have crushed a moth. Then came a dead hush, in which a butterfly’s wing might almost have been heard to beat. Then, a low murmur, half assent, half dissent. Then, suddenly bursting forth, a cheer that went pealing to the roof, and died away in reverberations along the triforium. The choice was made. And then—I had not dared to look up—I heard Sybil’s voice. She was close, close beside me.