The Lady Mary thanked him with a beaming smile, but the Fair
Geraldine could not suppress a slight laugh.

"Your grace is highly flattering," she said. "But, with all faith in beauty
and purity, I should place most reliance in a relic I possess--the virtue of
which has often been approved against evil spirits. It was given by a
monk- who had been sorely tempted by a demon, and who owed his
deliverance to it--to my ancestor, Luigi Geraldi of Florence; and from
him it descended to me."

"Would I had an opportunity of proving its efficacy!" exclaimed the Earl
of Surrey.

"You shall prove it, if you choose," rejoined the Fair Geraldine. "I will
give you the relic on condition that you never part with it to friend or
foe."

And detaching a small cross of gold, suspended by a chain from her
neck, she presented it to the Earl of Surrey.

"This cross encloses the relic," she continued; "wear it, and may it
protect you from all ill!"

Surrey's pale cheek glowed as he took the gift. "I will never past with it
but with life," he cried, pressing the cross to his lips, and afterwards
placing it next his heart.

"I would have given half my dukedom to be so favoured," said Richmond
moodily.