Seeing himself alone, Gilbert shrugged
his shoulders indifferently, and began to walk up and down, reading the
letter over and over. It was very short, but yet it contained so much
information that he found some difficulty in adjusting his thoughts to
what was an entirely new situation, and one which no amount of thinking
could fully explain. He was far too simple to suppose that Eleanor had
called Beatrix to her court solely for the sake of bringing him back to
Paris. He therefore imagined the most complicated and absurd reasons
for Queen Eleanor's letter.
He told himself that he must have been mistaken from beginning to end;
that the Queen had never felt anything except friendship for him, but a
friendship far deeper and more sincere than he had realized; and he was
suddenly immensely grateful to her for her wish to build up happiness
in his life. But then, again, she knew as well as he--or as well as he
thought he knew--that the Church would not easily consent to his union
with Beatrix, and as he closed his eyes and recalled scenes of which
the memories were still vivid and clear, the shadow that had chilled
his heart in Paris rose again between him and Eleanor's face, and he
distrusted her, and her kiss and her letter, and her motives. Then,
too, it seemed very strange to him that Beatrix should have left her
father's house; for Arnold de Curboil had always loved her, and it did
not occur to Gilbert that his own mother had made the girl's life
intolerable.
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