He answered: "That is very likely. Therefore I am come to bid you
farewell."
The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she broke into a curious
fit of deep but tearless sobbing.
"Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, very gently, "what is there in all
this worthy of your sorrow? The man will kill me; granted, for he is my
junior by some fifteen years, and in addition a skilled swordsman. I
fail to see that this is lamentable. Back to Longaville I cannot go
after recent happenings; there a rope's end awaits me. Here I must in
any event shortly take to the sword, since a beleaguered army has very
little need of ink-pots; and shortly I must be slain in some skirmish,
dug under the ribs perhaps by a greasy fellow I have never seen. I
prefer a clean death at a gentleman's hands."
"It is I who bring about your death!" she wailed. "You gave me gallant
service, and I have requited you with death!"
"Indeed the debt is on the other side. The trivial services I rendered
you were such as any gentleman must render a woman in distress. Naught
else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina. Ho, a
Sestina! And in return you have given me a Sestina of fairer make--a
Sestina of days, six days of life." His eyes were fervent now.