Pol with a company of Frenchmen,
bound on a mission to the Emperor. Maffeo, of whom one may still read in
the book of Messer Marco Polo, was become a famous man in the city, and
strangers resorted to his house to hear his tales and see his treasures.
From him St. Pol learned of the dead knight, and, reading the cognisance
on the ring, knew the fate of his friend. On his return journey he bore
the relic to Louis at Paris, who venerated it as the limb of a saint; and
thereafter took it to Beaumanoir, where the Lady Alix kissed it with proud
tears. The arm in a rich casket she buried below the chapel altar, and the
ring she wore till her death.
CHAPTER 5. THE MAID
The hostel of the Ane Raye poured from its upper and lower windows a
flood of light into the gathering August dusk. It stood, a little withdrawn
among its beeches, at a cross-roads, where the main route southward from
the Valois cut the highway from Paris to Rheims and Champagne. The roads at
that hour made ghostly white ribbons, and the fore-court of dusty grasses
seemed of a verdure which daylight would disprove.
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