nothing particular happened for a month or two. Her husband was
much as usual: she did not remember any special incident. But
one evening a pedlar woman came to the castle and was selling
trinkets to the maids. She had no heart for trinkets, but she
stood looking on while the women made their choice. And then,
she did not know how, but the pedlar coaxed her into buying for
herself an odd pear-shaped pomander with a strong scent in it--
she had once seen something of the kind on a gypsy woman. She
had no desire for the pomander, and did not know why she had
bought it. The pedlar said that whoever wore it had the power to
read the future; but she did not really believe that, or care
much either. However, she bought the thing and took it up to her
room, where she sat turning it about in her hand. Then the
strange scent attracted her and she began to wonder what kind of
spice was in the box. She opened it and found a grey bean rolled
in a strip of paper; and on the paper she saw a sign she knew,
and a message from Herve de Lanrivain, saying that he was at home
again and would be at the door in the court that night after the
moon had set. . .

She burned the paper and then sat down to think. It was
nightfall, and her husband was at home. . . She had no way of
warning Lanrivain, and there was nothing to do but to wait. . .

At this point I fancy the drowsy courtroom beginning to wake up.
Even to the oldest hand on the bench there must have been a
certain aesthetic relish in picturing the feelings of a woman on
receiving such a message at night-fall from a man living twenty
miles away, to whom she had no means of sending a warning. . .