He half smiled, then looking down, and colouring deeply:  “Do you remember, Lady Agnes, the Knight whom you bound by a promise, that in case of the triumph of his cause—­”

“Eustace, Eustace!  Oh, I should have known that nothing was too great and high for you, that you would not disparage the nobleness of any other than yourself.  Oh, how shall I ever render you my thanks!  After such cruel treachery as that from which you have, and, I fear me, are still suffering!  Alas! alas! that I should be forced to use such harsh words of my own brother!”

“I trust you may still be comforted, Lady,” said Eustace.  “From what the good Fathers tell me, there is hope that Fulk may yet be an altered man, and when the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he has vowed, is concluded, may return in a holy temper.”

“Return; but whither should he return?” said Agnes, in a broken, despondent tone,—­“landless, homeless, desolate, outcast, what shelter is open to him?  For if the porteress’s tale spoke truth, his lands and manors are forfeited to the King.”

“They are so, in truth; but there is one way, Agnes, in which they may still be restored to their true owner.”

“How so?  What mean you, Sir Eustace?”

“Agnes, I would not have broken upon your sorrow by speaking thus abruptly, but that the Prince’s, or rather the King’s desire was urgent, that the matter should be determined without loss of time.  To you, in all justice, does he will that the castles and manors of Clarenham should descend, but on one condition.”

Agnes raised her eyes, and, while she slowly shook her head, looked anxiously at him as he paused in considerable embarrassment.

“On condition that you, Lady Agnes, should permit the King and Prince to dispose of your fair hand in marriage.”

Agnes gave a slight cry, and leant against the grate of the parlour.  “Oh, that may never be, and—­but how advantageth that poor Fulk?”

“Because, Lady Agnes—­because it is to me that they would grant that hand which I have so long loved passionately and hopelessly.  Agnes, it was not willingly, but at the command of the Prince, that I came hither with a suit which must seem to you most strangely timed, from one who has been the most unwilling cause of so much misery to you, whom, from earliest years, he has ever loved more than his own life.  I know, too, that you cannot endure to rise on the ruin of your brother, nor could I bear to feel that I was living on the lands of a kinsman and neighbour whose overthrow I had wrought.  But see you not, that jointly we can do what we never could do separately, that, the condition fulfilled, we could kneel before King Edward, and entreat for the pardon and restoration of Fulk, which, to such prayers, he would surely grant?”