And if, perhaps, some trusting woman
comes to you with overladen heart, you tell her that she is not in a
state of grace. It must be easy to be a great man in that way."
She turned as she spoke the last words and stepped from the platform to
the stone pavement. At the enormous injustice of her judgment,
Bernard's face grew cold and stern; but he would not answer what she
said, for he knew how useless it would be. In her, and perhaps in her
only, of all men and women he had known, there was the something to
which he could not speak, the element that was out of harmony with his
own being, and when he had talked with her it was as if he had eaten
sand. He could understand that she, too, was in contradiction with her
natural feelings in her marriage with such a man as the King; he could
be sorry for her, he could pity her, he could forgive her, he could
pray for her--but he could not speak to her as he could to others.
A dozen times before she reached the door he wished to call her back,
and he sought in the archive of his brain and in the treasury of his
heart the words that might touch her. But he sought in vain. So long as
she was before his eyes, a chilled air, dull and unresonant, divided
his soul from hers. Her hand was on the curtain to go out when she
turned and looked at him again.
"You will not go with us," she said. "If we fail, we shall count the
fault yours; if we quarrel and turn our swords upon one another, the
sin is yours; if our armies lose heart, and are scattered and hewn in
pieces, their blood will be on your head.
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