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in charity."
    "I am not mocking you; you can take my words literally. As far as I know, you are still Queen this day, and I wish you a long life, that's all."
    Silence fell upon them, for they set about eating. Anyone but Robert might have been moved by the sight of the two women - attacking their food like paupers.
    At first they had tried to feign a dignified detachment, but hunger carried them away and they hardly gave themselves time to breathe between mouthfuls.
    Artois spiked the hare upon his dagger and held it to the embers of the hearth to warm it. While doing so, he continued to watch his cousins, and had difficulty in controlling his laughter. "I've a good, mind to; put their bowls on the ground and let them get down on all fours and lick the very grain of the wood clean," he thought.
    They drank too. They drank Bersumee's wine as if they needed to compensate all at once for seven months of cistern-water, and the colour came back, to their cheeks. "They'll make themselves sick," thought Artois, "and they'll finish this happy day spewing up their guts."
    He himself ate like a whole company of soldiers. His prodigious appetite was far from being a myth, and each mouthful would have needed dividing into four to suit an ordinary gullet. He
    devoured the stuffed goose as if it were a thrush, champing the bones. He modestly excused himself for not doing as much for the hare's carcass.
    "Hare's bones," he explained, "break into splinters and tear the stomach."
    When they had all eaten enough, he caught Blanche's eye and indicated the door. She rose without being asked, though her legs were trembling under her, she felt giddy and badly wanted to go, to bed. Then Robert had the first humanitarian impulse since his arrival. "If she goes out into the cold in this state, she'll die of it," he said to himself.
    "Have they lighted afire in your room?" he asked. "Yes, thank you, Cousin," replied Blanche. "Our life . She was interrupted by a hiccough.
    "... our life is really quite altered thanks to you. Oh, how: fond I am of you, Cousin, r eally, fond indeed. You'll tell Charles, won't you. You will tell him that I love him. Ask him to forgive me because I love him."
    At the moment she loved everyone. She went out, quite drunk, and tripped upon the staircase. "If I were here merely for my own amusement " thought Artois, "I should meet with little resistance from that one. Give a princess enough wine, and you'll soon see that she turns into a whore. But the other one seems to me pretty tight too."
    He threw a big log on the fire, turned Marguerite's chair towards the hearth, and filled the goblets.
    "Well, Cousin," he asked, "have you thought things, over?" "I have though t, Robert, I have thought. And I think I am going to refuse."
    She said this very softly. Apparently overcome as much by the warmth as by the wine, she was gently shaking her head. "Cousin, you're not being sensible, you know!" cried Robert. "But indeed, indeed, I think I shall refuse," she replied in an ironic, sing-song voice.
    The giant made a gesture of impatience. "Listen to me, Marguerite," he went on. "It must be to your advantage to accept now. Louis is by nature an impatient man, ready to grant almost
    anything to get his own way at the moment. You will never again have the chance of doing so well for yourself. Merely agree to make the declaration asked of you. There is no need for the matter to go before the Holy See; we can get a judgment from the episcopal tribunal of Paris, which is under the jurisdiction of Monseigneur Jean de Marigny, Archbishop of Sens, who will be told to make haste. In three months' time you will have regained complete personal freedom."
    "And if I won't?"
    She was leaning' towards the fire, her hands extended before her. The running string which held together the collar of her long shirt had become unknotted and revealed much of her bosom to her cous in's wandering eye; but she did not seem to care. "The bitch still has