“This, Sir Knight,” said Rebecca, “is but idle boasting⁠—a brag of what you would have done had you not found it convenient to do otherwise. You received my glove, and my champion, if a creature so desolate can find one, must encounter your lance in the lists⁠—yet you would assume the air of my friend and protector!”

“Thy friend and protector,” said the Templar, gravely, “I will yet be⁠—but mark at what risk, or rather at what certainty, of dishonour; and then blame me not if I make my stipulations, before I offer up all that I have hitherto held dear, to save the life of a Jewish maiden.”

“Speak,” said Rebecca; “I understand thee not.”

“Well, then,” said Bois-Guilbert, “I will speak as freely as ever did doting penitent to his ghostly father, when placed in the tricky confessional.⁠—Rebecca, if I appear not in these lists I lose fame and rank⁠—lose that which is the breath of my nostrils, the esteem, I mean, in which I am held by my brethren, and the hopes I have of succeeding to that mighty authority, which is now wielded by the bigoted dotard Lucas de Beaumanoir, but of which I should make a different use. Such is my certain doom, except I appear in arms against thy cause. Accursed be he of Goodalricke, who baited this trap for me! and doubly accursed Albert de Malvoisin, who withheld me from the resolution I had formed, of hurling back the glove at the face of the superstitious and superannuated fool, who listened to a charge so absurd, and against a creature so high in mind, and so lovely in form as thou art!”

“And what now avails rant or flattery?” answered Rebecca. “Thou hast made thy choice between causing to be shed the blood of an innocent woman, or of endangering thine own earthly state and earthly hopes⁠—What avails it to reckon together?⁠—thy choice is made.”