For your old wizard spoke rightly when he said that I
stand near to death."
"Will marrying me to a man I hate be for my good and make your House
great? I tell you, sir, it would kill me and bring the Claverings to
an end. Do you desire also that your broad lands should go to patch a
spendthrift Frenchman's cloak? But what matters your desire seeing that
I'll not do it, who love another man worth a score of him; one, too, who
will sit higher than any Count of Noyon ever stood."
"Pish!" he said. "'Tis but a girl's whim. You speak folly, being young
and headstrong. Now, to have done with all this mummer's talk, will you
swear to me by our Saviour and on the welfare of your soul to break with
Hugh de Cressi once and forever? For if so I'll let you free, to leave
me if you will, and dwell where it pleases you."
She opened her lips to answer, but he held up his hand, saying:
"Wait ere you speak, I have not done. If you take my offer I'll not even
press Sir Edmund Acour on you; that matter shall stand the chance of
time and tide. Only while you live you must have no more to do with the
man who slew your brother. Now will you swear?"
"Not I," she answered. "How can I who but a few days ago before God's
altar and His priest vowed myself to this same Hugh de Cressi for all
his life?"
Sir John rose from the stool and walked, or, rather, tottered to the
door.
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