and--scant cause for grief!--is with Leicester at this moment. I can
trust none of my brother's people, for I believe them to be of much the
same opinion as those Londoners who not long ago stoned you and would
have sunk your barge in Thames River. Oh, let us not blink the fact that
you are not overbeloved in England. So an escort is out of the question.
Yet I, madame, if you so elect, will see you safe to Bristol."

"You? Singly?" the Queen demanded.

"My plan is this: Singing folk alone travel whither they will. We will
go as jongleurs, then. I can yet manage a song to the viol, I dare
affirm. And you must pass as my wife."

He said this with simplicity. The plan seemed unreasonable, and at first
Dame Alianora waved it aside. Out of the question! But reflection
suggested nothing better; it was impossible to remain at Longaville, and
the man spoke sober truth when he declared any escort other than himself
to be unprocurable. Besides, the lunar madness of the scheme was its
strength; that the Queen would venture to cross half England
unprotected--and Messire Heleigh on the face of him was a paste-board
buckler--was an event which Leicester would neither anticipate nor on
report credit. There you were! these English had no imagination. The
Queen snapped her fingers and said: "Very willingly will I be your wife,
my Osmund. But how do I know that I can trust you? Leicester would give
a deal for me; he would pay any price for the pious joy of burning the
Sorceress of Provence. And you are not wealthy, I suspect."

"You may trust me, mon bel esper,"--his eyes here were those of a beaten
child--"because my memory is better than yours." Messire Osmund Heleigh
gathered his papers into a neat pile. "This room is mine. To-night I