In the Palace of the King Part 15

"You!" she cried, with rising energy. "You, the brave soldier, the spotless man, the very soul of honour made flesh and blood! You, who have but just come back in triumph from fighting your King's enemies--you against whom no living being has ever dared to breathe a slander or a slighting word. Oh, no, no, no, no! I could not bear that you should betray your faith and your country and yourself, and be called traitor for my sake! Not for ten lives of mine shall you ruin yours. And not because I might love you less if you had done that deed.

G.o.d help me! I think I should love you if you committed any crime! The shame is the more to me--I know it. I am only a woman! But rather than let my love ruin you, make a traitor of you and lose you in this world and the next, my soul shall go first--life, soul, honour, everything!

You shall not do it! You think that you love me more than I love you, but you do not. For to save you as you are, I love you so dearly that I will leave you--leave you to honour, leave you to your King, leave you to the undying glory of the life you have lived, and will live, in memory of my love!"

The splendid words rang from her lips like a voice from heaven, and her eyes were divinely lightened. For they looked up, and not at him, calling Heaven to witness that she would keep her promise. As her open hand unconsciously went out, he took it tenderly, and felt her fingers softly closing on his own, as if she would lift him to himself again, and to the dear light of her own thoughts. There was silence for a moment.

"You are better and wiser than I," he said, and his tone told her that the madness was past.

"And you know that I am right? You see that I must leave you, to save you from me?"

"Leave me--now?" he cried. "You only said that--you meant me to understand--you did not mean that you would leave me now?"

"I do mean it," she said, in a great effort. "It is all I can do, to show you how I love you. As long as I am in your life you will be in danger--you will never be safe from yourself--I see it all now! I stand between you and all the world would give you--I will not stand between you and honour!"

She was breaking down, fight as she would against the pain. He could say nothing, for he could not believe that she really was in earnest.

"I must!" she exclaimed suddenly. "It is all I can do for you--it is my life--take it!"

The tears broke from her eyes, but she held her head high, and let them fall unheeded.

"Take it!" she repeated. "It is all I have to give for yours and your honour. Good-by--oh, love, I love you so dearly! Once more, before I go--"

She almost, fell into his arms as she buried her face on his shoulder and clasped his throat as she was wont. He kissed her hair gently, and from time to time her whole frame shook with the sobs she was choking down.

"It kills me," she said in a broken voice. "I cannot--I thought I was so strong! Oh, I am the most miserable living woman in the world!"

She broke away from him wildly and threw herself upon a chair, turning from him to its cushion and hiding her face in her hands, choking, pressing the furious tears back upon her eyes, shaking from head to foot.

"You cannot go! You cannot!" he cried, falling on his knees beside her and trying to take her hands in his. "Dolores--look at me! I will do anything--promise anything--you will believe me! Listen, love--I give you my word--I swear before G.o.d--"

"No--swear nothing--" she said, between the sobs that broke her voice.

"But I will!" he insisted, drawing her hands down till she looked at him. "I swear upon my honour that I will never raise my hand against the King--that I will defend him, and fight for him, and be loyal to him, whatever he may do to me--and that even for you, I will never strike a blow in battle nor speak a word in peace that is not all honourable, through and through,--even as I have fought and spoken until now!"

As she listened to his words her weeping subsided, and her tearful eyes took light and life again. She drew him close, and kissed him on the forehead.

"I am so glad--so happy!" she cried softly. "I should never have had strength to really say good-by!"

CHAPTER X

Don John smoothed her golden hair. Never since he had known that he loved her, had she seemed so beautiful as then, and his thought tried to hold her as she was, that she might in memory be always the same. There was colour in her cheeks, a soft flush of happiness that destroyed all traces of her tears, so that they only left her grey eyes dark and tender under the long wet lashes.

"It was a cruel dream, dear love! It was not true!" Finding him again, her voice was low, and sweet with joy.

He smiled, too, and his own eyes were quiet and young, now that the tempest had pa.s.sed away, almost out of recollection. It had raged but for a few moments, but in that time both he and she had lived and loved as it were through years, and their love had grown better and braver.

She knew that his word was enough, and that he would die rather than break it; but though she had called herself weak, and had seemed to break down in despair, she would have left him for ever rather than believe that he was still in danger through her. She did not again ask herself whether her sudden resolution had been all for his sake, and had not formed itself because she dreaded to think of being bound to one who betrayed his country. She knew it and needed no further self-questioning to satisfy her. If such a man could have committed crimes, she would have hated them, not him, she would have pardoned him, not them, she would still have laid her hand in his before the whole world, though it should mean shame and infamy, because she loved him and would always love him, and could never have left him for her own sake, come all that might. She had said it was a shame to her that she would have loved him still; yet if it had been so, she would have gloried in being shamed for his sake, for even then her love might have brought him back from the depths of evil and made him again for her in truth what he had once seemed to the whole world. She could have done that, and if in the end she had saved him she would have counted the price of her name as very little to set against his salvation from himself. She would have given that and much more, for her love, as she would freely give all for him and even for his memory, if he were dead, and if by some unimaginable circ.u.mstances her ruin before the world could keep his name spotless, and his glory unsullied. For there is nothing that a true-hearted loving woman will not give and do for him she loves and believes and trusts; and though she will give the greatest thing last of all, she will give it in the end, if it can save him from infamy and destruction. For it is the woman's glory to give, as it is the man's to use strength in the hour of battle and gentleness in the day of peace, and to follow honour always.

"Forget it all," answered Don John presently. "Forget it, dear, and forgive me for it all."

"I can forget it, because it was only a dream," she said, "and I have nothing to forgive. Listen to me. If it were true--even if I believed that we had not been dreaming, you and I, could I have anything to forgive you? What?"

"The mere thought that I could betray a trust, turn against my sovereign and ruin my country," he answered bravely, and a blush of honest shame rose in his boyish cheeks.

"It was for me," said Dolores.

That should explain all, her heart said. But he was not satisfied, and being a man he began to insist.

"Not even for you should I have thought of it," he said. "And there is the thought to forgive, if nothing else."

"No--you are wrong, love. Because it was for me, it does not need my forgiveness. It is different--you do not understand yet. It is I who should have never forgiven myself on earth nor expected pardon hereafter, if I had let myself be the cause of such deeds, if I had let my love stand between you and honour. Do you see?"

"I see," he answered. "You are very brave and kind and good. I did not know that a woman could be like you."

"A woman could be anything--for you--dare anything, do anything, sacrifice anything! Did I not tell you so, long ago? You only half believed me, dear--perhaps you do not quite believe me now--"

"Indeed, indeed I do, with all my soul! I believe you as I love you, as I believe in your love--"

"Yes. Tell me that you do--and tell me that you love me! It is so good to hear, now that the bad dream is gone."

"Shall I tell you?" He smiled, playing with her hand. "How can I? There are so few words in which to say so much. But I will tell you this--I would give my word for you. Does that sound little? You should know, for you know at what price you would have saved my honour a while ago. I believe in you so truly that I would stake my word, and my honour, and my Christian oath upon your faith, and promise for you before G.o.d or man that you will always love me as you do to-day."

"You may pledge all three. I will, and I will give you all I have that is not G.o.d's--and if that is not enough, I will give my soul for yours, if I may, to suffer in your stead."

She spoke quietly enough, but there was a little quaver of true earnestness in her voice, that made each word a solemn promise.

"And besides that," she added, "you see how I trust you."

She smiled again as she looked at him, and knew how safe she was, far safer now than when she had first come with him to the door. Something told her that he had mastered himself--she would not have wished to think that she had ruled him? it was enough if she had shown him the way, and had helped him. He pressed her hand to his cheek and looked down thoughtfully, wishing that he could find such simple words that could say so much, but not trusting himself to speak. For though, in love, a man speaks first, he always finds the least to say of love when it has strongest hold of him; but a woman has words then, true and tender, that come from her heart unsought. Yet by and by, if love is not enduring, so that both tire of it, the man plays the better comedy, because he has the greater strength, and sometimes what he says has the old ring in it, because it is so well said, and the woman smiles and wonders that his love should have lasted longer than hers, and desiring the illusion, she finds old phrases again; yet there is no life in them, because when love is dead she thinks of herself, and instead, it was only of him she thought in the good days when her heart used to beat at the sound of his footfall, and the light grew dim and unsteady as she felt his kiss. But the love of these two was not born to tire; and because he was so young, and knew the world little, save at his sword's point, he was ashamed that he could not speak of love as well as she.

"Find words for me," he said, "and I will say them, for yours are better than mine."

"Say, 'I love you, dear,' very softly and gently--not roughly, as you sometimes do. I want to hear it gently now, that, and nothing else."

She turned a little, leaning towards him, her face near his, her eyes quiet and warm, and she took his hands and held them together before her as if he were her prisoner--and indeed she meant that he should not suddenly take her in his arms, as he often did.

"I love you, dear," he repeated, smiling, and pretending to be very docile.

"That is not quite the way," she said, with a girlish laugh. "Say it again--quite as softly, but more tenderly! You must be very much in earnest, you know, but you must not be in the least violent." She laughed again. "It is like teaching a young lion," she added. "He may eat you up at any moment, instead of obeying you. Tell me, you have a little lion that follows you like a dog when you are in your camp, have you not? You have not told me about him yet. How did you teach him?"

"I did not try to make him say 'I love you, dear,'" answered Don John, laughing in his turn.

As he spoke a distant sound caught his ear, and the smile vanished from his face, for though he heard only the far off rumbling of a coach in the great court, it recalled him to reality.

"We are playing with life and death," he said suddenly. "It is late, the King may be here at any moment, and we have decided nothing." He rose.