The hand
that had been held out to pay him money for its own life, must be as
cold as a stone and as unfeeling. She was helping him to be true.
He shook himself and stretched his long arms as if awaking from sleep
and dreaming. The motion hurt him, and he felt all his bruises at once,
but there was a sort of pleasure in the pain, that accorded with his
strange state of heart, and he did it a second time in order to feel
the pain once more.
CHAPTER XVIII
The knight, whose name was Gaston de Castignac, faithfully fulfilled
Gilbert's wishes, using certain ornate flourishes of language which the
Englishman could certainly not have invented, and altogether expressing
an absolute refusal in the most complimentary manner imaginable. The
Queen bade him return the gold to her seneschal without breaking the
leaden seal that pinched the ends of the knotted strings together. When
she was alone, her women being together in the outer part of the tent,
she hid her face in her white hands, as she sat, and bending forward,
she remained in that attitude a long time, without moving.
It was as Gilbert had thought. In the generous impulse that had
prompted her to ask Beatrix's forgiveness she had done what was hardest
for her to do, in a sort of wild hope that, by insulting the man who
had such strong attraction for her, she might send him away out of her
sight forever. Had he accepted the money, she would assuredly have
despised him, and contempt must kill all thoughts of love; but since he
refused it, he must be angry with her, and he would either leave her
army, and join himself to the Germans during the rest of the campaign,
or, at the very least, he would avoid her.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265