Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/546

502 ed me. At least I was as quick as she, and sprang for the window as she threw herself across its ledge. But I was none too quick. Her head and shoulders hung over the space without, and but for the weight of my body upon hers, but for the clutch of my arms about her waist, she must have gone.

I raised her and lifted her back into the room, and her face turned to mine in the candle-light—gray eyes burning black. I heard the breath catch in her throat. I felt her heart beat fast and strong against my own, and then the strength went out of my arms in an odd fit of trembling, and she slipped from them to her feet upon the floor.

"Oh, is it so bad as that, my lady?" said I. "Is the thought of me and of what I beg from you so bitter that you welcome a horrible death in its stead?" I turned back across the room and dropped into a chair, covering my face with my two hands. I knew she would not again try to throw herself from the window. "Am I deformed, repulsive to touch?" said I, bitterly. "Am I ugly, misshapen, old? Am I such as a woman must shrink from?"

"No, lord," said the Countess Aziliçz.

"Yet you would have killed yourself rather than marry me," said I.

"I would kill myself, lord, rather than marry any man with no love in my heart," said she. Ah, if she had only held to her mood of anger! If she had raged and struggled as against old Kabik! To meet and deal with the scornful girl who had mocked at my messengers of love I was armed. This still woman in her woman's weakness disarmed me—moved my tongue to stammerings.

"Many have married without love," said I, "yet have come to love thereafter. Had the Count, your father, lived, you must have married a man of his choice, not your own. My mother, whose soul God guards, was carried off by night from Carhaix. Yet she lived a happy life—happier than any other woman I have known. Your mother's sister was won to the house of Kersalec by force. I have not heard that she passes her days in grieving."

"Kersalec," said the maid, rearing her head, "is an honorable house. A woman must be proud to be of it, whether won by force or no."

"And the Tévennec, lady?" said I.

"A robber stronghold, lord," said Aziliçz of Landévennec. "A tower whose lords live by preying upon others—the strong upon the weak, as witnesses this night's work."

"Now, by God's grace, madame," I cried, springing to my feet, "that is not true! No lord of the Tévennec ever preyed upon a weaker man, nor looted save on the high seas, where no law holds. Neither I, Countess, nor my father before me ever oppressed the feeble or took from the poor. If we have robbed, it has been at sea against great odds, and from ships of Spain or of England, which ventured forth knowing their danger and accepting their risk. Can your lords of the mainland, grinders of the poor, traitors to their feebler neighbors, say as much? Why, madame, in this very night's work we who were six overcame you who were sixteen armed men. Nay, madame, there you touch my pride! I am no cowardly wrecker. I take my toll from those who can afford it—and at peril of my life. If that be dishonor, and such dealings as Kersalec and Landévennec and Audierne must one day answer for be honor, I have been ill-instructed in the words."

The Countess Aziliçz sat upright in her chair, eyes shining, hands clenched upon her knees. "Oh, that were a life to live!" she cried, in an odd, low, breathless tone, "a life for a brave man, Count Denes!" But I was very angry at her gibe and did not heed. I passed her and stood before the open window, scowling out into the night. "A robber stronghold," indeed! "A tower whose lords live by preying upon others!" She should pay for that.

"Well?" said the Countess Aziliçz, presently, and I swung about to face her. She stood in the centre of the room, drawn up to all her slender height, and disdain breathed from her. Scorn sat upon every pale feature of her beautiful face. "Do you not waste time and patience with talking?" said she. "Here am I in your hands. Is holy Church to be invoked this night, my lord, or am I happily to be left to my rest alone? We waste time."