I have come to see how you are--there, there! I did not
mean to startle you!"
She smoothed the soft brown hair, and then, with a sudden impulse,
kissed the pale forehead, and fanned it, and kissed it again, as if
Beatrix had been one of her own little daughters instead of being a
grown woman not very far from her own age.
"I thank your Grace," said Beatrix, faintly.
"We are nearer than thanks since yesterday. Or if there were to be
thanking, it should be from me to you who followed me with one other,
when three hundred stayed behind. And we are closer than that, for one
man saved us both."
She stopped and looked round. The Norman woman was standing
respectfully near the door of the tent, with eyes cast down and hands
hidden under the folds of her skirt, which were drawn through her
girdle in the servants' fashion.
"Go," said Eleanor, quietly. "I will take care of your mistress for a
while. And do not stay at the door of the tent, but go away."
The woman bent her head low and disappeared.
"Yes," Beatrix said, when they were alone, "I saw Gilbert Warde stop
your horse, and yours stopped mine. He saved us both."
There was silence, and the fan moved softly in the Queen's hand.
"You have loved him long," she said presently, in a tone that
questioned.
Beatrix did not answer at once, and on her smooth young forehead two
straight lines made straight shadows that ended between her half-closed
eyes. At last she spoke, with an effort.
"Madam, as you have a soul, do not take him from me!"
She sighed and withdrew her hand from Eleanor's, as if by instinct.
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