But let me do no more than ask a favour, and it is, 'What of my good name, madame?
What of my seneschalship?
Am I to be gaoled or hanged to pleasure you ?' Faugh!" she ended, with a toss of her splendid head.

"The world is peopled with your kind, and I--alas! for a woman's intuitions--had held you different from the rest." Her words were to his soul as a sword of fire might have been to his flesh.

They scorched and shrivelled it.

He saw himself as she would have him see himself--a mean, contemptible craven; a coward who made big talk in times of peace, but faced about and vanished into hiding at the first sign of danger.

He felt himself the meanest, vilest thing a-crawl upon this sinful earth, and she--dear God!--had thought him different from the ruck.