Speaking from my knees, and with both hands spread over the little heap of holy things, I repeated the oath clause by clause. As I ended, and while still kneeling, Louis snatched the necklet from under my palms, and touching a spring in one of the reliquaries, pressed the little grey morsel it contained to my lips. "_Consummatum est!_" he cried triumphantly, "Now indeed we have you, have you body and soul, bound fast for this world and that which is to come. 'Tis the Cross of Saint Lo, Monsieur de Helville, whereon who forswears himself dies within the year and perishes eternally. The guarantees are complete. What a man will not do for a woman's sake he will for his life--if not for his soul. His soul!" he groaned complainingly, the unctuousness slipping out from his voice as suddenly as it had slipped in. "We spend so much time saving our souls that France suffers. Cannot the Saints save us and have done with it! But there's a thought there; d'Argenton, your arm." Pushing back his chair, the King rose painfully to his feet, a meagre skeleton of a man, bent by more than the weight of years. "On this occasion when we seek the peace of the world it would be a Christian duty to ask the blessing of Saint Eutropius." Leaning on Monseigneur, Louis limped towards the oratory, dragging one foot rasping on the floor as he walked. "It can do no harm," I heard him mutter. "It is always well to keep heaven on our side, eh, d'Argenton?" "Yes, Sire, but is it wise that the priest should over-hear----?" "Tut, tut; he never leaves Plessis. Besides, a priest has a neck between his frock and his shaven crown as well as another man." "But, Sire, his office?" Louis paused, looking round, so that I saw the profile of his wrinkled forehead and thin nose white against the gloom of the shrine. "I am faithful to the Church, d'Argenton, no man more so, but, by God! the Church had better be faithful to me, for there's no benefit of clergy to traitors! We desire your prayers, dear father," he went on loudly, "to the end that an enterprise of peace may have the blessing of Saint Eutropius upon it. Only, no Latin, pray in honest French so that I, as well as the good Saint, may understand what you say." Down on his knees he went by the rail, Monseigneur on a faltstool behind him, while I, apparently forgotten, knelt in turn on the bare floor. "To the point, and not too long," said Louis. "Like myself, he is busy in good works, and we must not waste his time." Out from the deeper shadow at the side of the altar a black-frocked figure stole into view. "Then you do not desire a special office, Sire?" said a soft voice. Louis raised his head. "Anything, man, so that you are quick, and to the point. If I could have spoken for myself, we would have done by this."