Therefore stay your tongue on that matter and tell me how I am to make her my wife," answered Acour haughtily.
The chaplain cringed and bowed, rubbing his thin hands together.
"I thought you wished to speak of the English, my lord, otherwise I should not have ventured--but as to the lady Eve, something comes to me.
Why does she stay in sanctuary who herself has committed no crime?
Is it not, such is her madness, because she would be out of reach of you and your endearments?
Now if she believed you gone far enough away, let us say to France, and knew that her father lay ill, why then----" and he paused.
"You mean that she might come out of sanctuary of her own accord ?" "Yes, lord, and we might set a springe to catch this bird so rare and shy, and though she'd flutter, flutter, flutter, and peck, peck, peck, what could she do when you smoothed her plumage with your loving hand, and a priest was waiting to say the word that should cause her to forget her doubts and that merchant bumpkin ?" "Ah, Nicholas, you have a good wit, and if all goes well you shall certainly be an abbot.

But would her father, do you think----" "Lord, that beef-eating knight is in such a rage that he would do anything.

What did he say just before the stroke took him?
That you were to marry her by fair means or by foul.

Yes, and he told me an hour ago that if only he knew she was your wife, he would die happy.

Oh, you have his warrant for anything you do to bring about this end.