She looked on that most faithful woman, and on that maiden
knight whom she so dearly loved, sinning daily in her heart for him,
and yet for his sake fighting her loving thoughts; and she would not
have dared to go forward and kneel beside the pure in heart, in the
holy light. All alone she drew back, and when she was so far that they
could not have seen her, had they looked, she knelt down by a pillar,
and drew her dark veil over her face, folding her hands in the hope of
forgiveness and peace, and in great loneliness.
Some comfort she found in this, that for the great love of her life,
the like of which she had not known nor was to know again, though she
had wished evil and dreamed of sweetest sins, she had done a little
good at the last, and that the man who knelt there praying had grown
stronger and greater and of higher honour by her means. Yet the comfort
was not of much worth in her loneliness, since she had given him to
another, and none could take his place. Then she said prayers she knew,
but they had no meaning, and she gazed from beneath her veil at the
place where the Lord had lain; but she felt nothing, and her heart was
as stone, believing what she saw, but finding no light of faith for her
in the divine beyond.
At last she rose softly, as she had knelt, and leaning against the
pillar, she looked long at the man she loved, and at the shield with
the cross of Aquitaine, and, in it, at the spot she had once so
fervently kissed. Her hand went to her heart, where it hurt her, and
with the hurt came the great pure longing that, come what might to
herself, all might be well with him; and her lips moved silently, while
her eyes would have given him the world and its glory.
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