“I am too old, Maurice, and I have a daughter,” answered Waldemar.

“Give her to me, Fitzurse, and I will maintain her as fits her rank, with the help of lance and stirrup,” said De Bracy.

“Not so,” answered Fitzurse; “I will take sanctuary in this church of Saint Peter⁠—the Archbishop is my sworn brother.”

During this discourse, Prince John had gradually awakened from the stupor into which he had been thrown by the unexpected intelligence, and had been attentive to the conversation which passed betwixt his followers. “They fall off from me,” he said to himself, “they hold no more by me than a withered leaf by the bough when a breeze blows on it!⁠—Hell and fiends! can I shape no means for myself when I am deserted by these cravens?”⁠—He paused, and there was an expression of diabolical passion in the constrained laugh with which he at length broke in on their conversation.