But while she hesitated, Eleanor brought water from a bright brass ewer
and dashed drops upon the girl's face; she found also a cup with Greek
wine in it, that smelt of fine resin, and she set it to the pale lips
and held it there. Presently Beatrix opened her eyes a little, and
suddenly she shuddered when she saw Eleanor and heard her voice in the
deep stillness.
"As one woman to another--I ask your forgiveness."
CHAPTER XVII
Gilbert sat in the door of his tent at noon, the sun shining down upon
him and warming him pleasantly, for the day was chilly, and he was
still aching. As he idly watched the soldiers going and coming, and
cooking their midday meal at the camp-fires, while Dunstan and Alric
were preparing his own, he was thinking that this was the third day
since he had saved the Queen's life, and that although many courtiers
had asked of his condition, and had talked with him as if he had done a
great deed, yet he had received not so much as a message of thanks from
Eleanor nor from the King, and it seemed as if he had been forgotten
altogether. But of Beatrix, Dunstan told him that she was in a fever
and wandering, and the Norman woman had said that she talked of her
home. Gilbert hated himself because he could do nothing for her, but
most bitterly because he had yielded to the Queen's eyes and to her
voice in the instant of balanced life and death.
The great nobles passed on their way to their tents from the King's
quarters, where the council met daily to trace the march.
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