"She speaks ever kinglike, and kinglike will I answer her, so she bring no request unworthy herself or me." The beauty of Edith was of a more intellectual and less voluptuous cast than that of the Queen; but impatience and anxiety had given her countenance a glow which it sometimes wanted, and her mien had a character of energetic dignity that imposed silence for a moment even on Richard himself, who, to judge by his looks, would willingly have interrupted her.
"My lord," she said, "this good knight, whose blood you are about to spill, hath done, in his time, service to Christendom.

He has fallen from his duty through a snare set for him in mere folly and idleness of spirit.

A message sent to him in the name of one who--why should I not speak it ?--it was in my own--induced him for an instant to leave his post.

And what knight in the Christian camp might not have thus far transgressed at command of a maiden, who, poor howsoever in other qualities, hath yet the blood of Plantagenet in her veins ?" "And you saw him, then, cousin ?" replied the King, biting his lips to keep down his passion.
"I did, my liege," said Edith.

"It is no time to explain wherefore.