She could not find words with which to answer him at the first effort,
but presently she said, quite simply, "To see you lying in your coffin
I would willingly give up my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford no
sight more desirable."
"You loved Alain."
"I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend how utterly I
loved him."
Now I have to record of this great king a piece of magnanimity which
bears the impress of more ancient times. "That you love me is
indisputable," he said, "and this I propose to demonstrate. You will
observe that I am quite unarmed save for this dagger, which I now throw
out of the window--" with the word it jangled in the courtyard below.
"I am in Troyes alone among some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom
would willingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. You
have but to sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I shall be
a dead man. Strike, then! for with me dies the English power in
France. Strike, Katharine! if you see in me but the King of England."
She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was because of terror.
"You came alone! You dared!"
He answered, with a wonderful smile, "Proud spirit! how else might I
conquer you?"
"You have not conquered!" Katharine lifted the baton beside the gong,
poising it. God had granted her prayer--to save France. Now might the
past and the ignominy of the past be merged in Judith's nobler guilt.
But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her beck, her
main desire was to slap the man for his childishness. Oh, he had no
right thus to besot himself with adoration! This dejection at her feet
of his high destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inability
to understand him. Angrily she flung away the baton. "Go! ah, go!"
she cried, as one strangling. "There has been enough of bloodshed, and
I must spare you, loathing you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand
murder you."
But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence from his
associates as lesser folk squeeze water from a sponge. "I cannot go
thus. Acknowledge me to be Alain, the man you love, or else strike
upon the gong."
"You are cruel!" she wailed, in her torture.
"Yes, I am cruel."
Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a hard gesture of
despair. "You have conquered. You know that I love you. Oh, if I
could find words to voice my shame, to shriek it in your face, I could
better endure it! For I love you. Body and heart and soul I am your
slave. Mine is the agony, for I love you! and presently I shall stand
quite still and see little Frenchmen scramble about you as hounds leap
about a stag, and afterward kill you. And after that I shall live! I
preserve France, but after I have slain you, Henry, I must live. Mine
is the agony, the enduring agony." She stayed motionless for an
interval. "God, God! let me not fail!" Katharine breathed; and then:
"O fair sweet friend, I am about to commit a vile action, but it is for
the sake of France that I love next to God. As Judith gave her body to
Holofernes, I crucify my heart for France's welfare." Very calmly she
struck upon the gong.
If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during the ensuing
silence, she could have borne it; but there was only love. And with
all that, he smiled as one knowing the upshot of the matter.
A man-at-arms came into the room. "Germain--" Katharine said, and then
again, "Germain--" She gave a swallowing motion and was silent. When
she spoke it was with crisp distinctness. "Germain, fetch a harp.
Messire Alain here is about to play for me."
At the man's departure she said: "I am very pitiably weak. Need you
have dragged my soul, too, in the dust? God heard my prayer, and you
have forced me to deny His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, be
very kind to me, for I come to you naked of honor." She fell at the
King's feet, embracing his knees. "My master, be very kind to me, for
there remains only your love."
He raised her to his breast. "Love is enough," he said.
Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathedral church these
two were betrothed. Henry was there magnificent in a curious suit of
burnished armor; in place of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brush
ornamented with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded great matter of
remark among the busy bodies of both armies.