Suddenly, with a start I seemed to wake to the consciousness that ’twas mine no more. Still dreaming, I was aware that I had deceived a lover, and stolen his mistress and made her my bride. I have never felt such acute anguish as I did in that sleep when the thought came upon me. I felt nothing more of pride. All things had left me. My self-respect was gone like a ragged cloak. All the old, dear life was shut out from me by a huge barrier. Comfortable, rich, loving, and beloved, I was yet in the very jaws of Hell. I felt myself biting out my tongue in my despair. My brain was on fire with sheer and awful regret. I cursed the day when I had been tempted and fallen.
And then, even while I dreamed, another sight came to my eyes—the face of a lady, young, noble, with eyes like the Blessed Mother. In my youth I had laid my life at the feet of a girl, and I was in hopes of making her my wife. But Cecilia was too fair for this earth, and I scarcely dared to look upon her she seemed so saintlike. When she died in the Forest of Arnay, killed by a fall from her horse, ’twas I who carried her to her home, and since that day her face was never far distant from my memory. I cherished the image as my dearest possession, and oftentimes when I would have embarked upon some madness I refrained, fearing the reproof of those grave eyes. But now this was all gone. My earthy passion had driven out my old love; all memories were rapt from me save that of the sordid present.
The very violence of my feeling awoke me, and I found myself sitting up in bed with a mouthful of blood. Sure enough, I had gnawed my tongue till a red froth was over my lips. My heart was beating like a windmill in a high gale, and a deadly sickness of mind oppressed me. ’Twas some minutes before I could think; and then—oh, joy! the relief! I had not yet taken the step irremediable. The revulsion, the sudden ecstasy drove in a trice my former resolution into thinnest air.
I looked out of the window. ’Twas dawn, misty and wet. Thank God, I was still in the land of the living, still free to make my life. The tangible room, half lit by morning, gave me a promise of reality after the pageant of the dream. My path was clear before me, clear and straight as an arrow; and yet even now I felt a dread of my passion overcoming my resolve, and was in a great haste to have done with it all. My scruples about my course were all gone. I would be breaking my oath, ’twas true, in leaving the maid, but keeping it in the better way. The thought of the dangers to which she would be exposed stabbed me like a dart. It had almost overcome me. “But honor is more than life or love,” I said, as I set my teeth with stern purpose.
Yet, though all my soul was steeled into resolution, there was no ray of hope in my heart—nothing but a dead, bleak outlook, a land of moors and rain, an empty purse and an aimless journey.
I had come to the house a beggar scarce two months before. I must now go as I had come, not free and careless as then, but bursting shackles of triple brass. My old ragged garments, which I had discarded on the day after my arrival, lay on a chair, neatly folded by Anne’s deft hand. It behooved me to take no more away than that which I had brought, so I must needs clothe myself in these poor remnants of finery, thin and mud-stained, and filled with many rents.
X
Of My Departure
I passed through the kitchen out to the stable, marking as I went that the breakfast was ready laid in the sitting room. There I saddled Saladin, grown sleek by fat living, and rolling his great eyes at me wonderingly. I tested the joinings, buckled the girth tight, and led him round to the front of the house, where I tethered him to a tree and entered the door.
A savory smell of hot meats came from the room and a bright wood fire drove away the greyness of the morning. Anne stood by the table, slicing a loaf and looking ever and anon to the entrance. Her face was pale as if with sleeplessness and weeping. Her hair was not so daintily arranged as was her wont. It seemed almost as if she had augured the future. A strange catch—coming as such songs do from nowhere and meaning nothing—ran constantly in my head. ’Twas one of Philippe Desportes’, that very song which the Duke de Guise sang just before his death. So, as I entered, I found myself humming half unwittingly:
“Nous verrons, bergère Rosette,
Qui premier s’en repentira.”
Anne looked up as if startled at my coming, and when she saw my dress glanced fearfully at my face. It must have told her some tale, for a red flush mounted to her brow and abode there.
I picked up a loaf from the table. ’Twas my one sacrifice to the gods of hospitality. ’Twould serve, I thought, for the first stage in my journey.
Anne looked up at me with a kind of confused wonder. She laughed, but there was little mirth in her laughter.
“Why, what would you do with the loaf?” said she. “Do you seek to visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction?”
“Nay,” said I gravely. “I would but keep myself unspotted from the world.”
All merriment died out of her face.
“And what would you do?” she stammered.
“The time has come for me to leave, Mistress Anne. My horse
