bet--and since I so bore myself that you could not boast, and since I was
not a rich woman whose fortune would be of use to you, you followed
another and left me--me!"

"As his Grace of Osmonde will when I tell him my story," he answered. "He
is not one to brook that such things can be told of the mother of his
heirs."

She would have shrieked aloud but that she clutched her throat in time.

"Tell him!" she cried, "tell him, and see if he will hear you. Your word
against mine!"

"Think you I do not know that full well," he answered, and he brought
forth a little package folded in silk. "Why have I done naught but
threaten till this time? If I went to him without proof, he would run me
through with his sword as I were a mad dog. But is there another woman
in England from whose head her lover could ravish a lock as long and
black as this?"

He unfolded the silk, and let other silk unfold itself, a great and thick
ring of raven hair which uncoiled its serpent length, and though he held
it high, was long enough after surging from his hand to lie upon the
floor.

"Merciful God!" she cried, and shuddering, hid her face.

"'Twas a bet, I own," he said; "I heard too much of the mad beauty and
her disdain of men not to be fired by a desire to prove to her and
others, that she was but a woman after all, and so was to be won. I took