Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/77

62 still a young man with a natural heart, threw himself on his knees beside the bed and flung himself into the arms of Francis. So for a long time captive and captor held each other tightly embraced.

Then said Francis, who witnessed this affection with some excusable irony, "Sire, you see before you your prisoner and your slave!"

"Nay," cried Charles, with real remorse, "my good brother and true friend whom I hold as free!"

This was too much for Francis. He looked round the room.

"Your slave!" he repeated.

"My friend, who shall be free!" repeated the Emperor.

So the little scene has been handed down to us. We can imagine to what hopes and desires gave rise these words of Charles, dictated half by generous remorse, half by a desire to keep alive a valuable prisoner. On the morrow Margaret arrived. It was the 20th September. The Emperor was still at the Alcazar. When the bustle of her attendants announced her arrival he went down-stairs to receive this woman who had been proposed to him as a wife. He found her in the doorway, pale and in tears. She was dressed from head to foot in white, the mourning of a royal widow. He led her, still weeping, to her brother. When he shut the door on their meeting, he must have remembered that proposal of marriage, and recalled the pale, dishevelled woman he had left. She had had no time to repair the disorders of travel; she was worn with her long, hot journey over rough, unshaded roads. Her beautiful hair and graceful figure were seen at a disadvantage. Her long face with the marked features must have appeared haggard