'Oh, for your honour--you need not fear for that! Any knight in the army could have done as much without prejudice to your honour. Why, you silly loon, d'ye think I would not have been as angered as yourself, if your honour had been injured?' Malcolm's heart felt easier, but he still growled. 'Then, Sir, if you assure me that I can do so without detriment to my honour, I will not quit you.' James laughed. 'It might have been more graciously spoken, my good cousin, but I am beholden to you.' Malcolm, ashamed and vexed at the sarcastic tone, held his tongue for a little while, but presently exclaimed, 'Will the Bishop of Therouenne hear of it?' James laughed. 'Belike not; or, if he should, it would only seem to him the reasonable training of a young squire.' The King did not say what crossed his own mind, that the Bishop of Therouenne was more likely to think Henry over-strict in discipline, and absurdly rigorous. The prelate, Charles de Luxemburg, brother to the Count de St. Pol, had made several visits to the English camp. He was one of these princely younger sons, who, like Beaufort at home, took ecclesiastical preferments as their natural provision, and as a footing whence they might become statesmen. He was a great admirer of Henry's genius, and, as the chief French prelate who was heartily on the English side, enjoyed a much greater prominence than he could have done at either the French or Burgundian Court. He and his brother of St. Pol were Esclairmonde's nearest kinsmen--'oncles a la mode de Bretagne,' as they call the relationship which is here sometimes termed Welsh uncle, or first cousins once removed--and from him James had obtained much more complete information about Esclairmonde than he could ever get from the flighty Duchess. Her mother, a beautiful Walloon, had been heiress to wide domains in Hainault, her father to great estates in Flanders, all which were at present managed by the politic Bishop. Like most of the statesman-secular-clergy, the Bishop hated nothing so much as the monastic orders, and had made no small haste to remove his fair niece from the convent at Dijon, where she had been educated, lest the Cistercians should become possessed of her lands. He had one scheme for her marriage; but his brother, the Count, had wished to give her to his own second son, who was almost an infant; and the Duke of Burgundy had designs on her for his half-brother Boemond; and among these various disputants, Esclairmonde had never failed to find support against whichever proposal was forced upon her, until the coalition between the Dukes of Burgundy and Brabant becoming too strong, she had availed herself of Countess Jaqueline's discontent to evade them both.