Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/548

504 torture of feeling one's love cold in one's arms—shivering with dread at one's touch."

"Lord, lord!" cried the Countess Aziliçz, her face in her hands.

"At morning light, madame," said I, "you with your company shall be sent on your way free to Landévennec, and no one need ever know that you were waylaid and brought here."

"Lord, lord!" said the Countess Aziliçz, sharply, and stared at me, amazed, breathless. "Free?" she whispered. "Un—harmed—as I—came?"

"Unharmed, madame, as you came," said I. "My groping hands cannot reach the moon—only the glass of the window."

"Oh, lord," said the Countess Aziliçz, with glad, shining eyes, "you breed noble gentlemen here on your Tévennec! Oh, I am bitterly, bitterly sorry for my gibes and my scorn. Lord, your heart is as tender as it is brave. My poor hand will be honored by your kiss, lord." She put out her hand to me, and I kissed it as I had done on that day a year gone by. I think, as before, it shook a very little under my lips. And so I left her.

"I will have your two women released and sent to you," I said, from the doorway. "I trust you will sleep." She was standing in the centre of the room as I turned to her, one hand at her heart, the other—that I had kissed—stretched toward me. On her beautiful face there was a strange little smile, a puzzling little smile, but I in my bitterness had no heart to read it.

I sent the two women up to their mistress, and old Rozennik after them to contrive for my lady what comfort she might, and then I went to my own chamber and sat by the open window with my head in my hands.

Oh, it is a cruel thing to know one's self unlovable! The sting bites deep. Christ who died on the tree, Saints Guenolé and Korentin who watch over Armorica, spare me another such night as that sweet, fresh night with its crooning wind out of the west, and its soft, plashing sea, and its moon and bright stars! Spare me another such eternity of the blackness of despair, where is neither rest nor hope nor hint of peace. It is a cruel thing to know one's self unlovable.

I could not bide in one place. I went down through the great hall and out upon the rocks, where the little waves splashed and threw up jets of spray, where the sweet wind bore cool against my face; but the waves mocked at me, laughing among the rocks, and the sweet wind made sport of my grimness, whispering past my ears.

I climbed to my familiar tower top, halting for a moment outside my lady's chamber door. Within I heard slow stirring about. Once my lady sobbed, and at that I could not wonder. Once she laughed, low—not in mirth,—and at that I did wonder. And once she broke into a little faint snatch of song, such as mothers croon to their babes.

Hours later, when with the first small hint of dawn I came down from the ramparts, all was still within.

"Thank God," said I, "that she at least may sleep."

Later still, when the sun had risen, we made ready the captured sailing-boat and put the men of Landévennec into it, with their arms beside them, they staring at us with dull amazement. The Countess Aziliçz came out from the castle with her two women. She was in her armor of pride this morning, high and cold and proud and aloof. There was no color in her cheeks, and her eyes when she spoke looked over my head beyond me.

"Again I thank you, my lord," said she, "for this courtesy, which I shall ever remember."

"It is but a tardy righting of a great wrong, madame," said I. "I deserve no kind word from you. I ask you only to remember that when I did the wrong I was mad —and, perhaps, to remember also the cause of my madness."

But at the boat's side the Countess Aziliçz raised her hand to her bosom. "The red jewel!" said she, "which I wear at my breast. It has been left in the tower chamber. If some one could fetch it?"

"It is the last small service I can render you, madame," said I. "Let me fetch the jewel with my own hands!"

I went within and quickly up to the tower chamber. The red jewel on its