"Your eyes flash anger, madam, but is it reasonable they should?-- Did I not hear your screams of agony, and was I to stand fettered by ceremony at such a moment?--no more than if the castle had been on fire." "I ask you again, Rose," said her mistress, still with discomposure, though less angrily than at first, "whom you directed to break into my apartment?" "Indeed, I know not, lady," said Rose; "for beside that he was muffled in his mantle, little chance was there of my knowing his features, even had I seen them fully. But I can soon discover the cavalier; and I will set about it, that I may give him the reward I promised, and warn him to be silent and discreet in this matter." "Do so," said Eveline; "and if you find him among those soldiers who attend us, I will indeed lean to thine opinion, and think that fantasy had the chief share in the evils I have endured the last night." Rose struck her palfrey with the rod, and, accompanied by her mistress, rode up to Philip Guarine, the Constable's squire, who for the present commanded their little escort. "Good Guarine," she said, "I had talk with one of these sentinels last night from my window, and he did me some service, for which I promised him recompense--Will you inquire for the man, that I may pay him his guerdon?" "Truly, I will owe him a guerdon, also, pretty maiden," answered the squire; "for if a lance of them approached near enough the house to hold speech from the windows, he transgressed the precise orders of his watch." "Tush! you must forgive that for my sake," said Rose. "I warrant, had I called on yourself, stout Guarine, I should have had influence to bring you under my chamber window." Guarine laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. "True it is," he said, "when women are in place, discipline is in danger." He then went to make the necessary inquiries among his band, and returned with the assurance, that his soldiers, generally and severally, denied having approached the mansion of the Lady Ermengarde on the preceding night. "Thou seest, Rose," said Eveline, with a significant look to her attendant. "The poor rogues are afraid of Guarine's severity," said Rose, "and dare not tell the truth--I shall have some one in private claiming the reward of me." "I would I had the privilege myself, damsel," said Guarine; "but for these fellows, they are not so timorous as you suppose them, being even too ready to avouch their roguery when it hath less excuse--Besides, I promised them impunity.--Have you any thing farther to order?" "Nothing, good Guarine," said Eveline; "only this small donative to procure wine for thy soldiers, that they may spend the next night more merrily than the last.--And now he is gone,--Maiden, thou must, I think, be now well aware, that what thou sawest was no earthly being?" "I must believe mine own ears and eyes, madam," replied Rose.