But games and lessons and everything else was forgotten when one day Richard came into the queen's 'bower,' as a lady's boudoir was then called, and told her that he must leave her and proceed at once to Ireland, where he was much needed. Isabel wept and clung to him, and besought him to take her with him; but he shook his head gently, and said that Ireland was no place for ladies, still less for queens, and that she must stay at home and look to her household. He went on to say that he had been greatly wroth at discovering the state that the lady de Coucy had taken on herself, and had dismissed her from her charge about the queen, and bade her to go back to France. In her stead he had given her place to his niece, the young and widowed countess of March, who would shortly arrive with her two small children, and join the sad company in the castle. --------------------- Left alone, the queen remained sitting in her carved high-backed chair, gazing straight before her, but seeing nothing. Her thoughts wandered away through the past year, and to the Christmas which she and Richard had kept in the bishop's palace at Lichfield, and to the journey they had made during the summer, riding under shady trees and hedges gay with honeysuckle and wild roses, and over downs sweet with gorse and bright with heather, amongst the towns of the west country, where they had seen splendid cathedrals and stately abbeys, and listened to the people talking a strange speech, which even Richard, clever as he was, could not understand! How happy they had both been, laughing over all their adventures, and what merry evenings they had passed in the tents that Richard had ordered to be spread for the night, wherever Isabel fancied. And how wonderful it was to visit the places where Guinevere had lived, and Arthur had fought his last battle! And now, now he was going to leave her, and travel over the seas, where he might suffer shipwreck, and run into dangers that she might never know. Oh no! It was impossible! She could never bear it. But it had to be. On April 25, St. Mark's Day, Richard and Isabel went hand in hand to St. George's chapel at Windsor, kneeling side by side while a solemn Mass was sung and one of the collects chanted by the king himself. When the service was over they left the church as they came, Isabel with her face white and drawn, with her eyes bright and tearless, and walking steadily. Outside the great door was set a table with wine and food, and together they ate, for the king did not mean to return again into the castle, but to ride straight into the west. When they had eaten, or pretended to eat, the king lifted up the queen in his arms, and holding her to his heart he kissed her many times, saying, 'Farewell, madame, until we meet again,' not knowing that it was farewell for ever. Then he rode away without looking back, his young cousins, Henry of Monmouth and Humphrey duke of Gloucester, riding behind him.