breakfast?" she said in English.

"Et ben!" Ranulph repeated, still embarrassed, "a mouthful, that's all."

He laid aside his tool-basket, shook hands with the sieur, and seated
himself at the table. Looking at du Champsavoys, he said:

"I've just met the connetable. He regrets the riot, chevalier, and says
the Royal Court extends its mercy to you."

"I prefer to accept no favours," answered the chevalier. "As a point of
honour, I had thought that, after breakfast, I should return to prison,
and--"

"The connetable said it was cheaper to let the chevalier go free than to
feed him in the Vier Prison," dryly explained Ranulph, helping himself to
roasted conger eel and eyeing hungrily the freshly-made black butter
Guida was taking from a wooden trencher. "The Royal Court is stingy," he
added. "'It's nearer than Jean Noe, who got married in his red
queminzolle,' as we say on Jersey--"

But he got no further at the moment, for shots rang out suddenly before
the house. They all started to their feet, and Ranulph, running to the
front door, threw it open. As he did so a young man, with blood flowing
from a cut on the temple, stepped inside.




CHAPTER VIII