The Witch of Prague Part 55

"Her soul, her soul!" they heard him cry, between one burst and another as he went out, and from the echoing vestibule, and from the staircase beyond, the great laughter rolled back to them when they were left alone.

"What is it all? I cannot understand," the Wanderer said, looking up to the grand calm face.

"It is not always given to evil to do good, even for evil's sake," said the old man. "The thing that he would is done already. The wound that he would make is already bleeding; the heart he is gone to break is broken; the soul that he would torture is beyond all his torments."

"Is Unorna dead?" the Wanderer asked, turning, he knew now why, with a sort of reverence to his companion.

"She is not dead."

Unorna waited in the parlour of the convent. Then Beatrice came in, and stood before her. Neither feared the other, and each looked into the other's eyes.

"I have come to undo what I have done," Unorna said, not waiting for the cold inquiry which she knew would come if she were silent.

"That will be hard, indeed," Beatrice answered.

"Yes. It is very hard. Make it still harder if you can, I could still do it."

"And do you think I will believe you, or trust you?" asked the dark woman.

"I know that you will when you know how I have loved him."

"Have you come here to tell me of your love?"

"Yes. And when I have told you, you will forgive me."

"I am no saint," said Beatrice, coldly. "I do not find forgiveness in such abundance as you need."

"You will find it for me. You are not bad, as I am, but you can understand what I have done, nevertheless, for you know what you yourself would do for the sake of him we love. No--do not be angry with me yet--I love him and I tell you so--that you may understand."

"At that price, I would rather not have the understanding. I do not care to hear you say it. It is not good to hear."

"Yet, if I did not love him as I do, I should not be here, of my own free will, to take you to him. I came for that."

"I do not believe you," Beatrice answered in tones like ice.

"And yet you will, and very soon. Whether you forgive or not--that is another matter. I cannot ask it. G.o.d knows how much easier it would have been to die than to come here. But if I were dead you might never have found him, nor he you, though you are so very near together. Do you think it is easier for me to come to you, whom he loves, than it is for you to hear me say I love him, when I come to give him to you? If you had found it all, not as it is, but otherwise--if you had found that in these years he had known me and loved me, as he once loved you, if he turned from you coldly and bid you forget him, because he would be happy with me, and because he had utterly forgotten you--would it be easy for you to give him up?"

"He loved me then--he loves me still," Beatrice said. "It is another case."

"A much more bitter case. Even then you would have the memory of his love, which I can never have--in true reality, though I have much to remember, in his dreams of you."

Beatrice started a little, and her brow grew dark and angry.

"Then you have tried to get what was not yours by your bad powers!" she cried. "And you have made him sleep--and dream--what?"

"Of you."

"And he talked of love?"

"Of love for you."

"To you?"

"To me."

"And dreamed that you were I? That too?"

"That I was you."

"Is there more to tell?" Beatrice asked, growing white. "He kissed you in that dream of his--do not tell me he did that--no, tell me--tell me all!"

"He kissed the thing he saw, believing the lips yours."

"More--more--is it not done yet? Can you sting again? What else?"

"Nothing--save that last night I tried to kill you, body and soul."

"And why did you not kill me?"

"Because you woke. Then the nun saved you. If she had not come, you would have slept again, and slept for ever. And I would have let his dreams last, and made it last--for him, I should have been the only Beatrice."

"You have done all this, and you ask me to forgive you?"

"I ask nothing. If you will not go to him, I will bring him to you--"

Beatrice turned away and walked across the room.

"Loved her," she said aloud, "and talked to her of love, and kissed--"

She stopped suddenly. Then she came back again with swift steps and grasped Unorna's arm fiercely.

"Tell me more still--this dream has lasted long--you are man and wife!"

"We might have been. He would still have thought me you, for months and years. He would have had me take from his finger that ring you put there. I tried--I tell you the whole truth--but I could not. I saw you there beside me and you held my hand. I broke away and left him."

"Left him of your free will?"

"I could not lie again. It was too much. He would have broken a promise if I had stayed. I love him--so I left him."

"Is all this true?"

"Every word."

"Swear it to me."

"How can I? By what shall I swear to you? Heaven itself would laugh at any oath of mine. With my life I will answer for every word. With my soul--no--it is not mine to answer with. Will you have my life? My last breath shall tell you that I tell the truth. The dying do not lie."

"You tell me that you love that man. You tell me that you made him think in dreams that he loved you. You tell me that you might be man and wife.

And you ask me to believe that you turned back from such happiness as would make an angel sin? If you had done this--but it is not possible--no woman could! His words in your ear, and yet turn back? His lips on yours, and leave him? Who could do that?"