ENEMIES
I
When she woke, Mark was sitting as he was so fond of doing on a low
stool close to the hearth, with one long leg stretched out to the blaze,
his elbow resting on his knee, his face overshadowed by his hand.
Lenora--even as she first opened her eyes--saw that he was looking at
her. A quick blush rose to her cheeks.
"Is it time to go?" she asked quickly.
"Not yet," he replied.
She was a little startled and looked around her, puzzled and anxious.
The room had looked so light and cheerful when she had entered it--two
large bow windows gave on the Grand' Place--and the weather had remained
clear and bright. But now it seemed so dark, almost as if twilight was
fading fast.
"What hour is it?" she questioned, and looked about her anxiously for a
clock.
"I do not know," he replied airily.
"But your horse?"
"Still at the farrier's: he was busy and could not shoe her at once."
"But I am sure that it must be getting late," she said with a sudden
note of anxiety in her voice.
"Very late, I am afraid," he said lightly.
"Then should we not be starting for Brussels?"
"We cannot. I have no horse."
"You can hire one, surely?"
"Not in this town."
"But I must be in Brussels by nightfall," she urged.
"I am afraid that this is impossible in any case. The powers that reign
supreme in this town would not--if you remember--allow us into it, and
now they will not allow us out."
"But that is impossible," she exclaimed, "monstrous!..."
"Monstrous, as you say, Madonna," he rejoined with a smile. "But do you
feel equal to scaling the city walls?"
"Oh!"
"I fear me that that would be the only thing to do, if indeed you desire
to be in Brussels this night ... and even then, I doubt but that they
would bring us back."
"Then, Messire," she asked, trying to appear as calm, as detached, as he
seemed to be, "do you mean to tell me that we must spend the
night--here?"
"It is a pretty city..." he suggested.
"That we cannot now start for Brussels?"
"Impossible. The Schout of Dendermonde hath refused to allow us out of
this city until we have proved to his satisfaction that we are neither
spies of the Prince of Orange, nor emissaries of the Queen of England."
"You should have seen to it, Messire," she said haughtily, "that all our
papers were in order. This is an exceedingly mortifying and unpleasant
contretemps."
"I did not know the French word for it, Madonna," he rejoined with
exasperating good-humour, "but I know that it must be somewhat
unpleasant ... for you."
She tried to meet his glance, without that tell-tale blush spreading
immediately over her cheeks: and she could have cried with vexation when
she saw that the merry twinkle was more apparent in his grey eyes than
it had been since their wedding day.
"I believe," she said slowly, "that you, Messire, have devised this
scheme from beginning to end. You neglected your papers
purposely--purposely you quarrelled with the provost at the
gate--purposely you have caused me to be detained in this miserable
city...."
"A pretty city, Madonna," he interposed imperturbably, "the church was
built three hundred years ago ... the Cloth Hall..."
"And now you are impertinent," she declared hotly.
"Impertinent," he said quietly, even though the merry, gently mocking
glance still lingered in his eyes, "impertinent because I decline to
look on the present situation as a tragedy? How can I do that, Madonna,
since it gives me the opportunity of spending an evening alone with
you?"
"You might have done that yesterday and saved me much humiliation," she
retorted.
"Yesterday I was a fool, Madonna," he said. "To-day I have become a
wise man."
"What hath changed you?"
"Ten minutes of your company in the dining-hall last night."
She made no reply, glad enough that at this moment twilight was already
fading into dusk. In the ingle-nook where they sat, there was hardly
any light now save the glow of the fire. Anon the buxom, sad-eyed
hostess came in carrying a lamp which she placed on one of the tables in
the _tapperij_. She seemed to know--by that subtle instinct which
pertains to every woman's heart--that the seignior and his noble lady
did not wish to be disturbed. This was not the busy hour at the hostel:
in about an hour's time, the soldiers off duty would be coming in, and
the shopkeepers from their shops after their day's work; but just now
there was no one, so the kindly old soul having so placed the lamp that
a beneficent shadow still enveloped the ingle-nook, quietly tip-toed out
of the room.
II
Several minutes went by before Lenora was able to shake off the curious
torpor which had fallen over her senses: nor could she in any way
account for the sweet feeling of well-being which accompanied it. She
had made no reply to Mark's last words, nor did she make any now. She
lay back in her chair with eyes half closed, feeling, knowing that he
was looking at her unceasingly, with that intent, searching gaze of his
which she had encountered once or twice before. She felt as if he were
trying to reach her very soul--he, the careless ne'er-do-well, the
dissolute frequenter of taverns--what did he care for a woman's soul?
And yet it seemed impossible for Lenora at this moment to disguise from
that searching gaze all those terrible conflicts which had literally
been tearing her heart asunder in the past few hours--nay, more! it
seemed as if the very letter which lay inside the folds of her kerchief
addressed to her father must be lying open before her husband's eyes and
that he was reading it even now.
The feeling became akin to a sweet obsession, and gradually she allowed
her senses to yield themselves to its soothing influence. After all had
she not been sure that sooner or later God would make His will manifest
to her? had she not prayed for guidance? had she not hoped all the
morning that something would prevent her journey to Brussels? Content
to leave everything in God's hands she had yet hoped that God would
point the way to which her own heart was tending.
And now, circumstances had suddenly occurred which did impede the
journey--the horse had cast a shoe, the provost at the gate had proved
officious, the hour had slipped by and no horse was forthcoming.
Given the absolute simplicity of the girl's religious thoughts, her
upbringing, the superstition which underlay all beliefs in the old
tenets of the Church during this period of stress and struggle through
which she was groping her way through darkness into light: given
Lenora's pure nature and the proud humility which accepted
unquestioningly all the commands of those whom she had been taught to
reverence, was it to be wondered at that while she was quite ready to do
her duty, she should nevertheless hope and think that she had at last
received a distinct, supernatural sign that her journey to Brussels was
not one of those decrees of God before which everything on earth must
bow and every obstacle be removed?
But even then--in spite of her wishes and her hopes--she fought on to
the last and refused to yield to the sweet, insistent call of peace and
of sentiment. What she took to be a sign from God might easily be an
insidious machination of the devil. There was a quaint look of gentle
amusement in Mark's eyes, which was certainly disquieting, and it was
just possible that it was he who had--wittingly or unwittingly--assumed
the role of a guiding Providence in the matter.
Therefore she steeled her heart against those subtle whisperings which
seemed to lure her on every side to give up the fight, to allow herself
to drift on the soothing wave which even now was carrying her to a
haven, where all was peace and quietude and where there was neither
strife nor intrigue.
"Messire," she said abruptly and as repellently as she could, "I pray
you enlighten mine ignorance. How many cowardly deeds of this sort
stand to your discredit?"
He smiled quite unperturbed: "You think me an adept?" he asked quietly.
"You are not ashamed?" she retorted.
"Not in the least. What have I done?"
"Insulted me at every turn," she said very calmly. "What is this
detention---here, alone with you, in this strange town, away even from
the protection of my own serving wench--what is it but an insult? You
have shown me plainly enough, by every means in your power, that you had
no liking for me. Even last night..."
She paused because tears of humiliation--which she would have given
worlds not to shed--would come to her eyes, and her voice shook in spite
of every effort which she made at self-control.
"Madonna," he entreated, and suddenly he was quite close to her, with
one knee almost touching the ground, "as you are beautiful, so will you
not be merciful to a miserable wretch, who hath been sorely perplexed by
all the disdain which you have so generously lavished upon him?"
"Disdain, Messire ... surely I..."
"Surely," he broke in gently, "you have every right to despise a
worthless fellow whom an evil Chance hath given you for husband, but
have I not been punished enough for daring to accept what the kind
goddess did offer me?"
"I had no thought of punishing you, Messire," she said earnestly. "When
I stood beside you at the altar, I was a broken-hearted woman to whom
Fate in the person of a miserable assassin had dealt a cruel blow. I
loved my cousin, Messire ... oh! I know," she broke in quietly, "I
ought not to speak of this ... it is unseemly and perhaps unkind ... but
I did love him and he was murdered ... foully, abominably, wickedly
murdered ... not killed in fair fight--not openly--but in a dark
passage--waylaid by a brigand ... killed! he! the only man who had ever
spoken tenderly to me! ... and killed by one of your own people ... a
friend of the Prince of Orange ... a man whom popular talk hath
nicknamed Leatherface.... Oh! I know," she added hastily, seeing that
instinctively he had drawn away from her and was now staring straight
into the fire, with a hard expression on his face which she could not
fathom, "I know that you have no hand in these conspiracies ... that
from indifference rather than loyalty, I believe you have never taken up
the cause of rebellion against our Sovereign Lord; but tell me, Messire,
could I--a young, inexperienced girl--could I dissociate you and yours
in my mind from that faction who had sent my kinsman to his death? could
I come to you with a whole heart, and a soul freed from all thoughts of
hatred and revenge? I meant to do my duty by you and had you but helped
me I might have succeeded--instead of which your coldness repelled me.
I am of the south, Messire, I am not one of your cold, unemotional
Netherlanders who can go through life without one thrill of the heart
brought on by a tender word or a caress. I was in your house but a few
hours and already my soul was starving--my heart craved for that which
you were not able to give."
"God forgive me, Madonna," he murmured, "for a blind, insensate fool!"
But he did not look at her as he said this, and there was a curious
dreary tone in his voice so unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "How
you must hate us all!" he added with a sigh.
"I would not hate you, Messire," she said so softly that he scarcely
could hear; "your brother Laurence hath been kind to me and I know that
you take no part in those miserable plots that have treachery and
assassination for their ultimate goal. As for the Prince of Orange and
his friends! Yes! I do hate them as I do all pestilential creatures
that turn on the hand that feeds them!"
"Madonna," he exclaimed hotly--and suddenly he was quite close to her
once again, both her little hands held tightly in his own: his eyes had
lost all their merriment: they were full of a glowing ardour which
seemed to penetrate into her very soul. "Madonna," he continued, "may
God forgive you, for indeed you know not what you say. Child! child!
will you think a moment--are we not human creatures like yourself? do we
not live and breathe, and eat and love just like you do in Spain? Have
we no hearts to feel, no eyes to see the misery which our people suffer
through the presence of a stranger in our land? Would you see a Teuton
place his iron heel on Spain and on her people? Would you see the
Emperor enforce his laws, his faith, his ideals upon your kith and kin?
Would you stand by whilst foreign soldiery swaggered about your cities,
outraged your women and plundered your homes? Would you rest content if
the faith which God hath given you was made akin to treachery and to
rebellion? The hand that feeds the Netherlands, Madonna!" he added
whilst a bitter, mirthless laugh escaped his lips, "nay! the hand
against which the valiant Prince of Orange hath raised his in vengeance,
is the hand that hath devastated our land, pillaged our cities and sent
our people naked and starving out into the world!"
Gradually while he spoke she had drawn herself away from him, and she
would have disengaged her hands too, only that he held them so tightly
imprisoned.
"But Ramon was murdered, Messire," she said slowly, "can you expect me
to forget that?--and even now--I would dare swear--there are men who
would murder the Duke of Alva if they could ... or my father."
He made no answer to that--perhaps had she not mentioned her father he
might have tried to tell her that killing was not always murder, but, at
times, the work of a justiciary. Ramon--like the noisome brute that he
was--deserved death as no mere ordinary criminal ever had deserved it.
But how could he tell her that, when in her heart she had evidently kept
a picture of the man so totally unlike the vile and execrable reality?
So now he only sighed and remained silent.
The time had not yet come when this exquisite, tender-hearted girl must
see the riddles of life solved before her one by one--when she would
realise that there is a wider horizon in this world than that which she
perceived above a convent wall. She had been brought up with ideals,
thoughts and aspirations that had nothing to do with the great and
bitter truths which were proclaimed in every corner of this downtrodden
land. Her ideas of King and country, of duty, of loyalty, must all be
shattered by the crude realities of life ere upon their ruins she built
for herself a purer, holier edifice of faith and hope and infinite
charity.
A tender pity for her innocence and her ignorance filled Mark's heart
and soul, A maddening desire seized him to fold her in his arms and
carry her away somewhere into a dream-world far away where there were no
intrigues and no cruelties, no oppression and misery: and yet again he
would have loved to go with her there where sorrow and poverty were
keenest, for he knew that her soul--unbeknown even to herself--was full
of that gentle compassion which knows how to alleviate pain just by a
look from tear-dimmed eyes, or a touch from a gentle hand.
All that and more his look conveyed to her although he remained silent,
and she--by a curious intuition--knew just what was in his mind. The
impassioned appeal which he had made to her just now, told her that he
was not the indifferent ne'er-do-well that every one supposed. He felt
deeply and keenly--more deeply and keenly mayhap than those men who
plotted murders at dead of night. He was not a blind follower of the
Lieutenant-Governor or of her father: he saw the misery under which his
people groaned, and his careless, detached air obviously hid intense
bitterness and resentment.
But strangely enough, she did not blame him for this. Suddenly she
seemed to see the whole aspect of this strange country under a new
light: the cause of the Netherlanders had--in one instant--appeared to
her from a wholly different point of view. Because Mark was their
defender and their champion she felt that they could not be wholly vile.
This, mayhap, was not logic, but it was something more potent, more real
than logic--the soft insinuating voice of Sentiment which whispered:
"Would he champion that cause if it were base? Would that fiery ardour
fill his soul for a cause that was unworthy?"
And Lenora suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to confide in this one
man; to place before him all the perplexities which were tearing her
soul. Somehow she felt that he would help her out of that tangled
labyrinth wherein she had been groping all night and all day; but
shyness held her back. She did not know how to broach the subject, how
to tell him all about her oath, her obedience to her father, what she
had done last night, what she thought it her duty to do in the future.
It was all very difficult and Lenora sighed wearily:
"There is so much in what you said just now, Messire," she began
timidly, "that I would like to understand more clearly. I am so
ignorant ... my life has been so restricted ... I know so little of the
world...."
"Will you let me give you a few lessons?" he queried softly. "There are
so many mazes in life through which it is only possible to find the way
by going hand in hand."
"Hand in hand?" she sighed. "I am a stranger in this strange land,
Messire ... all that I know of it hath been taught me by those who have
no love for it...."
"You are a stranger in this whole world, dear heart," he said with a
smile. "This little bit of Netherlands is but a tiny corner of it: its
sorrows, its joys, its pain and happiness are but the sorrows and
happiness of the rest of the world. One day perhaps you will let me
take your little hand in mine, and then we would go and explore the
whole of this strange world together."
"I wonder what we would find?" she mused.
"We would find that despite intrigues and cruelty and hatred there is
much in it that is still beautiful and pure. If we went hand in hand,
you and I, we would not wander with eyes downcast and seeking in the mud
for the noxious things which foul God's creation by their presence--we
would look upwards, sweet, and see the soft blue of our northern skies,
veiled as it so often is with silvery mists that hold the entire gamut
of exquisite colours in their fairy bosoms; we would see the green
leaves of the trees turn to russet and gold in the autumn, we would see
the linnets nesting in the bay trees in the spring. There are many
beautiful things in this dreary world of ours, dear heart, but they can
only be seen if two pairs of eyes look on them at one and the same time
and two pairs of lips whisper together in thankfulness to God."
How strange it was to hear him talking like this--Mark van Rycke, the
haunter of taverns and careless profligate. Lenora's eyes, dark,
luminous, enquiring, were fixed upon him--and gradually as he spoke his
arm stole closer and closer round her shoulders as it had done two
nights ago in Ghent when she had so wantonly turned on him in hatred.
Now she felt as if she could go on listening to him for hours and
hours--thus alone in this semi-darkness with the glow of dying embers
upon his face, showing the strong outline of cheek and jaw, and the fine
sweep of the forehead with the straight brows above those kind, grey
eyes. She could have listened because she loved the sound of his voice,
and the quaint, foreign intonation wherewith he spoke the Spanish
tongue.
No! of a truth she did not dislike him: certainly she had no cause for
hatred against him, for what had he to do with traitors or with
assassins, he who spoke so gently of birds and skies and trees?
"If you will still let me hold this little hand, dear heart," he
whispered now, speaking so low that in order to hear she had to lower
her head until his lips were quite close to her ear, "we could learn one
lesson together which God only teaches to His elect."
"And what lesson is that?" she asked, feigning not to understand, though
she knew quite well what the answer would be.
"That which the nightingale teaches its mate when in May the hawthorn is
in bloom and the west wind whispers among its leaves. The lesson of
love."
"Love?" she said with a strange tremour in her voice, "the world no
longer contains love for me...."
"The world perhaps not, dear sweet," he said more gaily, "but there is a
heart beating close to yours now which holds I swear an infinity of love
for you."
And once more as he spoke, the same magic spell of a while ago descended
upon Lenora. It seemed as if for the moment life--the dreary, wretched
life of the past few days--had ceased, and a kind of dream-existence had
begun. And in this dream-existence she--Lenora--was all alone with this
stranger--this man whom but a few days ago she had not even seen--who
had had no part in her life in the peaceful past when she knew nothing
of the world beyond the old convent walls at Segovia; yet now--in the
dream-existence--she was alone with him and she was content. Ramon was
not there--he had become the past--all the future for her seemed
suddenly to be bound up with Mark, and she was content. He had spoken
of beauty, of skies, of birds and of the gifts of God, and he still held
her hand, and his arm now was right round her, so that she could feel
him drawing her closer and closer to him, the while the magic spell
worked upon her senses and she felt a delicious languor pervading her
entire being.
"Give me your lips, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear, "and I'll give
you your first lesson even now."
And verily I do believe that Lenora would have yielded here and
now--content to leave the great solution of her life's riddle in the
omnipotent hands of love--forgetting her oath to her father, the death
of Ramon, the danger which threatened the Duke of Alva, conspiracies,
treacheries, rebellion ... everything! What did it all matter? what did
the world and its intrigues and its politics count beside the insistent,
the wonderful call of Love?--the call of man to woman, of bird to bird,
to mate and to nest and to be happy, to forget the universe in one
embrace, to renounce the kingdoms of the world in the first blissful
kiss.
For a few seconds Lenora remained quite still, while Happiness--the
strange and mysterious elf--fluttered softly about the room. It hovered
for awhile above that ingle-nook where two young hearts were mutely
calling one to another, and it looked down on the beautiful girl with
the glowing eyes and parted lips who with every fibre of her ardent
being and the insistence of her youth was ready to capture it....
And Chance, Fate or its own elusive nature drove it relentlessly away.
III
How peaceful was the sleepy little town at this moment when dusk finally
faded into night!
The tower bells of the Cloth Hall chimed the sixth hour: outside on the
Grand' Place all had been still save for the occasional footstep of a
passer-by or the measured tramp of a company of halberdiers on duty.
And now suddenly that peace was broken, the quietude of the town
disturbed by piercing woman's shrieks, followed by shouts and curses
uttered loudly by a rough, masculine voice.
Mark instinctively jumped to his feet; the cries had become pitiable and
were multiplied by others which seemed to come from children's throats,
and the shouts and curses became more peremptory and more rough.
"What is it?" asked Lenora, not a little frightened.
"Oh! the usual thing," replied Mark hastily, "a woman insulted in the
streets, vain protests, rough usage, outrage and probably murder. We
are used to such incidents in Flanders," he added quietly.
Already he was half way across the _tapperij_.
"You are going?" she queried anxiously, "whither?"
"Out into the street," he said, "can you not hear that a woman is in
distress?"
"But what can you do?" she urged, "the soldiers are there ... you cannot
interfere ... you, a Netherlander...."
"Yes! I, a Netherlander," he said. "It is a Flemish woman who is
calling for help now."
He turned to go, and she--with the same instinct that was moving
him--rose too and followed him:--the same instinct of protection:
his--the man's for the woman who was in distress: hers--the woman's for
the man who would pit his strength alone against superior numbers. She
overtook him just as he reached the threshold of the _tapperij_. Beyond
it was only the porch, the door of which stood wide open, and beyond
that the Grand' Place; the shrieks and the ever-increasing noise of a
scuffle came from an adjacent street close by.
"You must not go, Messire," she said insistently, as with both hands she
clung to his arms, "what can you do? there is a crowd there ... and the
soldiers...."
He smiled and tried very gently to disengage his arm from her clinging,
insistent grasp.
"It will not be the first time, Madonna," he said with a light laugh,
"that I have had a scuffle with a posse of soldiery ... they sometimes
mean no harm," he added reassuringly seeing the look of anxious terror
in her eyes, "many a time has a scuffle ended in jollity at a few words
of common sense."
"Yes, yes, in Ghent," she urged, "where you are known. But here! ...
where no one knows you ... spies of the Inquisition might be about ...
if they see you interfering in favour of a heretic or a rebel ... or ...
Oh! men have been hanged and burned for lesser crimes than that."
"Ah!" he said looking down with a whimsical smile into her flushed and
eager face, "that is part of the benevolent rule which our Sovereign
Lord the King exercises over the Low Countries!"
Then seeing that at his flippant words--through which there rang a note
of intense bitterness--her eyes had suddenly filled with tears, he
murmured tenderly:
"God bless you, Madonna, for your sweet thoughts of me! I pray you let
me go! I'll come back soon," he added while a look of triumph flashed
up in his eyes, "never fear!"
He ran out quickly into the street.
She hesitated, but only for a second: the next she had followed him,
without thought that she had neither hood nor mantle, nor that the
unseemliness of her conduct would surely have shocked all the great
ladies of Spain.
IV
The Grand' Place was deserted and dark, only here and there in the
windows of the Cloth Hall there was a glimmer of light. For a moment
Lenora paused in the porch peering out into the gloom, trying to trace
whence came the noise of the scuffle, for Mark had already disappeared:
then she ran out swiftly, turning to her right from the porch till she
reached the corner of a narrow street. Here an oil lamp fixed into a
wall by an iron bracket threw a dim circle of light, beyond which the
shadows appeared almost impenetrable. It was somewhere in amongst those
shadows that a melee between shouting soldiers and shrieking women was
taking place.
Up to this moment Lenora had never stopped to reflect as to what she
meant or wanted to do. Blind instinct had driven her in the wake of
Mark, feeling that he was in danger--as indeed he was: a Netherlander
these days was in himself always an object of suspicion, and
interference with Spanish soldiery under any circumstances was indeed
likely to lead him into very grave trouble. If the soldiers were
arresting or merely molesting a heretic or a rebel, any one who
interfered with them would at once fall under the searching eye of the
Inquisition--and there was never a lack of spies on such occasions: the
_seven stiver people_--who for that paltry daily sum spent their lives
in reporting treason, listening for it in every tavern, and in every
back street of every city.
But now that she stood here at the street corner, hearing the
ever-increasing noise of the scuffle close by, hearing the shouts, the
cries, the pitiable appeals followed by peremptory commands, she
realised how miserably impotent and helpless she was. Yet she could
hear Mark's voice--speaking now in Spanish and now in Flemish, as he
tried--obviously--to understand the situation and to plead for those who
were in distress. At first his voice had sounded rough and peremptory:
indeed Lenora could not help but marvel at its commanding quality, then
gradually it became cheerful, and its tone turned to one of merry
banter. The incident indeed was evidently one of those which, alas!
were so usual in the cities and villages of the Low Countries these
days: two young women coming home down the dark, back streets from some
farm or silk-weaving shop where they had been at work, and a posse of
half-drunken soldiers to whom a Flemish peasant was an acknowledged prey
for ribald sport.
The women had resisted and tried to flee: they were pursued and rough
horse-play had ensued: then they had screamed and the men had sworn, and
presently other women and children joined in the scuffle while those who
were wise stayed quietly indoors.
Horse-play had become a matter of blows followed by threats of arrest
and dark hints at heresy, rebellion and the Inquisition: the melee was
at its height when Mark interfered. Several blows were still exchanged
after that, and there was a good deal of swearing and mutual
objurgation. Lenora, listening, wondered with what skill Mark gradually
made those curses turn to facetious remarks--ill-natured at first and
uncouth--then more light-hearted, and finally grudgingly pleasant.
Within five minutes the tumult began to subside: Lenora could hear the
women weeping and the soldiers laughing quite good-humouredly. How it
had all been done she did not know: presently from the tramping of feet
she gathered that the melee had broken up: a woman's voice said loudly:
"_Gott vergelte!_" and Lenora thought that indeed God would repay the
light-hearted man of the world who had by sheer good-humour and
compelling personality turned a drama into pleasing farce.
"Well, friend!" she heard a man's voice saying in Spanish, "I don't know
who you are, but a right good fellow; an I'm not mistaken. Perhaps it
was wisest to leave those women alone."
"I am sure of it, friend," quoth Mark gaily, "the commandant oft makes a
to-do about street-brawling, and you might have been blamed and got two
days' guard-room arrest just for kissing a pair of Flemish wenches. The
game was not worth the candle. Even the devil would have no profit in
it."
"Well said, mate," retorted the other lustily, "come and have a mug of
ale on it with me and my men at the 'Duke's Head' down yonder."
"Thank you, friend, but I put up at the 'Merry Beggars' and must return
thither now. A little later perhaps."
"At your service, comrade."
There was a pause during which Lenora made up her mind--since all tumult
and all danger had passed--to go back to that ingle-nook beside the fire
and there to wait till Mark returned ... to wait so that she might
resume with him that conversation of awhile ago which had interested her
so much. But on the point of turning she halted. Three words--spoken by
one of the soldiers--had come to her out of the gloom, and caused her
heart to stop its beating.
"You are hurt?" one man had said--in a kind, gruff way--evidently in
deep concern.
"No! no! it's nothing," Mark replied, "a small scratch ... in the
scuffle just now...."
"But you are bleeding...."
"And if I am, friend, it won't be the first time in my life. I tell you
it's nothing," added Mark with obvious impatience. "Good-night!"
"Good-night!" came in chorus from the men.
V
The measured tramp of booted feet slowly dying away in the distance down
the narrow street, told Lenora that at last the men had gone.
But Mark was hurt and she stood waiting at the street corner for she
heard his step coming slowly toward her.
He was hurt and had made light of it, but one of the soldiers had
remarked that he was bleeding and she waited now for him, dreading yet
vaguely hoping that he was really wounded--oh! only slightly!--but still
wounded so that she might wait on him.
So strange is a woman's heart when first it wakes from the dreams, the
unrealities, the fairy-worlds of childhood! With beating heart Lenora
listened to that slowly-advancing footstep--how slow it seemed! as if it
had lost that elasticity which but a few moments ago had carried Mark
bounding down this same street. Now it dragged and finally came to a
halt, just as Mark's figure emerged into the shaft of light thrown along
the wall by the street lamp close to which Lenora was standing.
She smothered a little cry and ran forward to meet him, for she had seen
his figure sway, and halt, then lean heavily against the wall.
"You are hurt!" she exclaimed, even before she reached him.
At sound of her voice, he pulled himself together, and in a moment had
straightened out his shoulders and was walking quite steadily toward
her.
"Madonna!" he cried in astonishment, "what are you doing here?"
"Oh! I ... I..." she murmured, a little ashamed now that she met his
pleasant, grey eyes fixed so kindly upon her, "I heard the noise ... I
became anxious...."
"It was only a street-brawl," he said, "not fit for you to witness."
Even now, though he spoke quite firmly, his voice sounded weary and
weak.
"You are hurt!" she reiterated.
"Hurt? No!" He laughed, but the laughter died on his lips: he had to
steady himself against the wall, for a sudden dizziness had seized him.
"I pray you take my arm," she insisted. "Can you walk as far as the
tavern?"
"Indeed I can," he retorted, "on my honour 'tis a mere scratch."
"An you'll not take my arm," she said peremptorily, "I'll call for
help."
"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed gaily. "I should be laughed at for a
malingerer. Shall we return to the tavern, Madonna? and will you not
take mine arm?"
He held his right arm out to her, but as he did so she noticed that he
kept the other behind his back.
She did take his arm, however. It was obviously best--since he was more
severely hurt than he cared to admit--to go at once back to the tavern,
and dress the wound there with water and clean linen.
They walked in silence side by side. It was only a matter of an hundred
yards or so, and after a very few moments they reached the porch of the
"Merry Beggars," and as the buxom hostess was standing there, vaguely
wondering what had happened to her guests, Lenora at once despatched her
off for a basin of clean warm water and her very softest linen towels.
Then she went into the _tapperij_, and Mark followed her.
The room was as peaceful, as deserted as it had been awhile ago. The
host himself had in the interval made up the fire, and it was blazing
brightly, lighting up the little ingle-nook, with the high-backed chair
wherein Lenora had sat and the low one drawn so close to it.
Turning to Mark, she noticed that he still kept his left arm resolutely
behind his back.
"Our good hostess won't be long with the water," she said, "in the
meanwhile, I pray you let me tend to your wound."
"It was nothing, Madonna, I entreat you," he said with marked
impatience, "a blow from a halberd caught me on the arm. I scarcely
feel it now."
"Let me see," she commanded.
Then as he made no movement to obey, she--half crying with anxiety, and
half-laughing with excitement--ran swiftly round him, and in an instant
she had hold, of his left hand, and with gentle pressure compelled him
to yield it to her. He tried to struggle, but the pain in his arm
rendered it somewhat helpless.
"I insist!" she said gently, and clung to his hand supporting the
fore-arm as she did so.
"Your sleeve is covered with blood!" she exclaimed.
"It is nothing!" he persisted obstinately.
But for the moment she was the stronger of the two. Short of doing her
violence he could not prevent her from holding his hand with one of
hers, and with the other undoing the buttons at his wrist; then with
utmost gentleness she detached the shirt which was sticking to a deep,
gaping wound, that stretched from the wrist right up to the elbow.
"Oh! but this is terrible!" she cried. "No blow from a halberd could
have inflicted such a wound! ... Oh! why does not that woman hurry?" she
added, whilst tears of vexation and impatience rose to her eyes. There
was nothing to hand wherewith she could staunch the wound, even
momentarily--every second was precious!...
"I have a knowledge of such matters," she said gently. "At the convent
we tended on many wounded soldiers, when they came to us hurt from the
wars. This is no fresh wound, Messire," she added slowly, "but an old
and very severe one, dealt not so very long ago ... by a dagger
probably, which tore the flesh and muscle right deeply to the bone ...
it had not healed completely ... the blow from the halberd caused it to
reopen ... and..."
But the next words remained frozen on her lips: even whilst she spoke
she had gradually felt a deathlike feeling--like an icy hand gripping
her heart and tearing at its strings. An awful dizziness seized her.
She looked up--still holding Mark's hand--and gazed straight into his
face. He too was as pale as the dead ashes in the grate--his whole face
had become wax-like in its rigidity, only his eyes remained alive and
glowing, fixed into her own now with a look which held a world of
emotion in its depths: passionate tenderness and mute appeal, an avowal
and a yearning and with it all an infinity of despair.
And she, thus looking into that face which only lived through the eyes,
saw all around her the narrow white-washed walls of the _tapperij_
fading away into darkness. In their stead she saw a narrow passage, dark
and gloomy, and in its remotest and darkest corner a figure cowered,
clad in dark clothes from head to foot and wearing a mask of leather
upon its face--the assassin waiting for his prey. And she saw
Ramon--handsome, light-hearted, debonnaire Ramon--her kinsman and her
lover, standing unsuspecting by. She saw it all--the picture as her
father had painted it for her edification. The assassin lying in
wait--Ramon unsuspecting. She saw the murder committed there in the
dark, the stealthy, surreptitious blow. She saw Ramon totter and
fall--but before falling turn on the dastardly murderer, and with hand
already half paralysed by oncoming death, deal him a deep and gashing
wound ... in the left fore-arm ... with his dagger which tore flesh and
muscle between elbow and wrist right through to the bone.
And while she looked straight into his eyes and yet saw nothing but the
vision of that awful deed, her lips murmured automatically the four
accusing words:
"Then it was you!"
He had not for one second lost his hold upon himself, since that awful
moment when he realised that she guessed. He had no idea that don Ramon,
at the point of death, had spoken of the wound which he had inflicted on
the man who had meted out summary justice to him for his crimes. But now
he knew that the secret which he would have buried with him in a
bottomless grave was known to her--to the woman whom he had learned to
love with his whole soul. She knew now, and henceforth they must be not
only strangers but bitter enemies. Nothing--not even perhaps his own
death--would ever wipe away the sense of utter abhorrence wherewith she
regarded him now. He took his last look of her as one does of one
infinitely dear, who sinks into the arms of Death.
He drank in every line of her exquisite face, the child-like contour of
chin and throat, her alabaster-like skin, the exquisite mouth which he
was destined now never to touch with his yearning lips. In this supreme
moment, his love for her--only just in its infancy--rose to its full
effulgence; he knew now that he worshipped her, and knew that never
while the shadow of her dead kinsman stood between them would he hold
her in his arms.
"Then it was you!" she murmured again, and with those fateful words
pronounced his condemnation and her own indomitable hate.
"Madonna," he entreated, speaking with the infinite tenderness and pity
which filled his heart, "will you deign to listen, if I try to plead
mine own cause?"
But no look of softness came into her eyes: they were glowing and dry
and unseeing: she did not see him--not Mark, her husband as he stood
there now before her--she saw him cowering in a dark corner, clad in
sombre clothes and wearing a leather mask--she saw him with an
assassin's dagger in his hand and she saw Ramon lying dead at his feet.
"Then it was you!" she said for the third time.
And he bent his head in mute avowal.
For a few seconds longer she stood there, rigid and silent: slowly her
fingers opened and his hand which she had held dropped away to his side.
A shudder went right through her, she tottered and nearly fell, only
saving herself by holding on to the corner of the table. He made a
movement as if he would try and support her, as if he would put his arms
around her and pillow her against his breast, but with an exclamation of
supreme loathing, she drew away from him, and with a pitiable cry half
of hatred and wholly of misery, she turned and fled from the room.