Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/551

Rh twisted chain of gold lay on the floor near the centre of the room. The little maid Genofa had discovered it, and was hastening down to say that it had been left behind. I put her gently out of the room upon the stair.

"Let me be alone for a moment, child," said I, and I took one last look at the room which had sheltered my lady.

"Yonder she lay to take her sleep," I said, "but she will never lie there again. Yonder she sat, in that chair, the while she talked and plead with me. She will never sit there again. That's the arras she cowered against when I—shame! shame!—threatened her. Oh, my lady, my lady!"

There came up to me through the open window a sound of shouts and words of command. I went to the window and looked out.

"Gone, gone!" I cried. The two-sailed boat of Landévennec had pushed off from the beach and was just catching the wind. The sun shone upon the men's arms and upon, the white coifs of the women in the stern. I saw the sails flap and swing, arid at last draw taut, and the boat begin to slip through the sea toward the Baie de Douarnénez.

"Gone!" said I, in shaking whisper. "Oh, could you not have trusted me? Need you play me a trick to escape while I was away? Were you afraid even to the last, my lady?"

I turned blindly away from the window and dropped into a chair, covering my face. I heard, after a time, the little maid Genofa stir outside the half-open door. I heard the murmur of her young voice and presently her step, slow and hesitating, within the room, but I would not look up.

"Little maid, little maid!" said I, bitterly, "the sunlight is gone from the Tévennec, and we are left in outer darkness. She tricked me, little maid, sent me away and fled before I could return, because she was afraid—afraid of me who loved her. Oh, never you love a man, little maid, for love is bitterness and thirst and endless, endless pain."

She was a loving little soul, the wee maid Genofa, quick with tears at another's weeping—full of caresses. She moved nearer to me, touching my arm with a timid hand.

"Ay, come comfort me, child!" said I, stretching out the hand which did not cover my face. "Come comfort me if there be comfort left in the world. God knows I am in sore need of it." And the little maid pressed between my knees as I sat, and kneeling there laid her face upon my breast, and I set my arm about her shoulders.

"God knows I am in sore need of it!" I said, again; but there ran a strange mounting thrill over me from head to foot—a strange fit of trembling, and I felt my hand shake among the little maid Genofa's hair.

"What is this that has come over me?" said I, and I opened my eyes upon the golden head which lay against my breast.

They say that to every man, once or twice in his lifetime, there come moments when the brain, full already to overflowing of emotion, can contain no more; when even a shock, great beyond words, of joy or sorrow, finds but deadened sensibilities, a heavy apathy. So it was with me in this moment. My wrung nerves could feel no more, and I but stared, dull of eye, helpless to move a hand.

"I could not—go, lord!" said my lady, crimson-cheeked, laughing through tears. "I sent the others—home. I never meant to go."

And still I sat bound with chains, helpless to stir a hand.

"Lord!" said my lady, with her face hidden upon my breast, "in the matter of—of the—window last night, I—I was—perhaps—not so—quick as I might have been."

The voice was very small and shamed. But at that I laughed, and my chains were broken.

"Then by the God who gloried in your making, heart's jewel," said I, "the mind of a woman is beyond my small ken."

"For that, the same God be thanked!" said Azilicz of Landévennec, "else were my new kingdom lost to me indeed. Lord, I have no fit gown to be married in!"