Roger of March and Bellesme. Earl Roger, who was more than double her
age, went out to fight; she stayed at home, in the nursery or near it,
and Fulk de Breaute came to make eyes. These he made with such
efficacy that Isabel lost her heart first and her head afterwards,
wedded Fulk in secret, bore him a child, and was the indirect means of
his stabbing by the Earl's men as he was riding through the dark over
Spurnt Heath. The child was given to the Abbot's keeping (whence it
promptly and conveniently vanished), the Countess was married to the
Earl; then the Earl died. Whereupon she, still young, childless so far
as she could learn, and possessed of so much, founded her twin abbeys
in Morgraunt to secure peace for the soul of Fulk and her own
conscience. This will suffice to prove that the Abbot had some grounds
for his manoeuvring. The breaking of her troth to the Earl she held to
make her an adulteress; the stabbing of Fulk by the Earl to prove her
a murderess. There was neither mercy nor discernment in these
reproaches. She believed herself a wanton when she had been but a
lover. For no sin, therefore, had she so little charity as for that
which the Abbot had imputed to his candidate for the tumbril. Isoult
la Desirous it was who won the charter, as the Abbot had intended she
should, to serve his end and secure her own according to his liking.

For the charter was sealed and seisin delivered in the presence of Dom
Galors, almoner of the Abbey, of Master Porges, seneschal of High
March, and of one or two mesne lords of those parts. Then the Countess
went to bed; and at this time Prosper le Gai was also lying in the
fringes of Morgraunt, asleep on his shield with his red cloak over
him, having learned from a hind whom he met on the hill that at
Malbank Saint Thorn he would find hospitality, and that his course
must lie in such and such a direction.