Chapter X: Part 10

The reason of his haste in fulfilling his mission, was a fear that the Count might change his mind and call him back, for during the eight years that his cousin had been away from her father's house, whenever a message had to be sent to her, he was never the one appointed to carry it, and there seemed to be a deliberate purpose to prevent their meeting. It is true that when they were both children there had been no one of whom the little Countess was so fond as of her silent, proud-spirited playfellow, the wandering minstrel's son, who at that time already led a strange and solitary life in the small tower where his mother had died. The servants had concluded that it was on account of young Geoffrey that Sir Hugo had sent his daughter to a convent, instead of taking a duenna into his house as many a widower had done, so as not to be separated from his child; and now here was the cousin sent to bring back the young lady, who had meanwhile, according to common report, grown up into unparalleled beauty. Had some suitor made his appearance on the previous evening, so that it was no longer necessary to guard the girl against an unsuitable attachment? Or had Death on his spectral horse accompanied the Count on his last night's ride, so that all earthly considerations having now fallen off from him, he merely thought of making his peace with God, and leaving his child free to be happy or unhappy in her own way? There was no solving the mystery.

As soon, however, as the turrets of the Castle of Malaspina were out of sight, Geoffroy threw away all care and sadness, and only suffered pleasant thoughts--rare guests in his mind--to go forth to meet the playfellow of his childhood, whose delicate face with its laughing white teeth and large dark eyes, shone out as plainly before him as though he had seen them but yesterday. The day was cloudless, the woods resounded with the song of birds, the beautiful fields of Provence spread before him golden with the ripening corn, and for the first time life appeared to him to be indeed a heavenly boon. He took to singing the song with which his father had won his mother's heart; he had found it in a music-book with the words written in the margin by her own hand.

"Le donz chans d'un auzelh,
Tue chantava en un plays,
Me desviet l'autr'ier
De mon camin--"

He knew not why this particular song should come to his mind: he had never till now thought of it but with sorrow, but to-day he sang it with clear voice and joyous heart.

As he approached the convent at evening, his mood became quieter, and his brow clouded. With fast beating heart he knocked at the gate, and delivering the letter through a grating to a lay-sister, awaited a message from the abbess. Before long the answer came, saying the command of the Count would be obeyed, that with the dawn of morning both the young girls would be given over to the messenger's charge, and that meanwhile he might spend the night at the house of the convent bailiff, who was accustomed to receive strangers, and dwelt in the vineyards of Mont Salvair.

The night, however, seemed long to the youth, for his trusty friend sleep came not as usual to speed it away; he envied the servant (who had only arrived about midnight with the baggage-horse,) the influence of the strong convent wine, and the deep unconsciousness that followed. In Geoffroy there was something awake which was stronger than wine or fatigue.

Once more it was day: they saddled their horses, took leave of the bailiff, and rode to the gate of Mont Salvair, there to await the youthful Countess. They were not there long before the door opened, the abbess came out, her train of nuns behind her, and in their midst the young Garcinde and her foster-sister, who were about to enter upon life and liberty, while the sisters returned to their pious bondage. There were so many tears and sighs, embraces and benedictions, that Geoffroy had still to wait some time before he could see the face of his cousin, now lost to him under one veil after another. But one glance of her black eyes, and the sheen of her fair hair, had wrought such an effect upon him, that he stood by his horse in utter confusion of mind, and hardly heard the abbess, who enquired in evident wonder whether he were really the messenger who yesterday brought Count Malaspina's letter, and to whom his daughter was to be confided. The servant, who was standing by with folded hands and open mouth, staring at the holy women, had to nudge the youth with his elbow before he came to himself, and reverentially bowed assent to what he had only imperfectly heard. "Sir Hugo himself," he said, his eyes still fixed on his cousin's fair hair, "had been prevented coming. He had charged him to ride slowly, and to spend the night at La Vaquiera." By mentioning this prudent plan, he hoped to remove any scruple the abbess might have in confiding the maiden to so young an escort. He seemed however, to have produced a quite contrary effect, for after one perturbed heavenward look, the noble lady turned away to some of the older nuns, and began in a low voice to take counsel with them. Then when the bailiff had led out the horses for the young women, and while some of the lay-sisters helped the servant to load the baggage horse with clothes and provisions, a lively face emerged from the living hedge of black and white veils. It belonged to Aigleta, the child of Garcinde's nurse, who had grown up to be a blooming maiden, and who now approached the mute messenger, holding out a small but vigorous hand, and exclaiming, "In God's name be welcome, Sir Geoffroy! Is it you?" After which she went up to the abbess and whispered a word or two in her ear which seemed to dispel all anxiety. The pious lady depended too fully on the lessons of wisdom and virtue, which her charge had imbibed with conventual milk, to hold it possible that she should give her heart to a nameless illegitimate cousin, especially at a time when, in all probability, a distinguished alliance awaited her. Accordingly she clasped Garcinde--who burst into tears--in her motherly embrace, herself helped her to mount the old convent grey, while Aigleta was lifted by Geoffroy on to a spirited pony, and with much sobbing and waving of hands and handkerchiefs, the small cavalcade was at last sent off from the old arched gate of Mont Salvair, through which the band of the Brides of Heaven slowly and mournfully returned.

But the young travelling-companions, too, proceeded on their way more silently and thoughtfully than might be expected, when a knightly youth, on the fairest of summer days, guides two fair maidens mounted on fresh horses upon their first expedition into a smiling world. After a hasty question as to how her father was, Garcinde had not again addressed Geoffroy, influenced, perhaps, by the curt although reverential manner in which he had seemed to avoid entering into further details. But Aigleta, who for her part had not allowed the departure from Mont Salvair to weigh the least upon her spirits, took up a livelier tone, and after a sigh of gratitude for being at last delivered from the pious monotony of cloistered life, began to give Geoffroy an amusing account of its course from day to day. She was an excellent mimic, and counterfeited the voices of the different sisters, their mild whispers, and downcast eyes, their unrestrained laughing and screaming as soon as they were unobserved, their petty spiteful quarrels, their cloying affectionateness to each other, ready at a moment's notice to turn into deadly enmity. In the midst of all this she introduced the solemn bass voice of the abbess, exhorting to peace, and painting the dangers of the world; and finally she concluded with a wild medley of pious and godless speeches, in which the nuns were supposed to express their feelings on the departure of the young Countess, their envy, their fear that Satan with all his crew might be waiting for them outside the gates; lastly the prayer of the abbess for their deliverance from all dangers, especially from the temptations of bold knights, and suspicious young cousins.

Garcinde who had been riding a yard or two in advance, now cut short this burst of spirits, and with her gentle voice--without, however, turning towards Aigleta--rebuked her frivolous tone. It was sinful, she said, after all the love and kindness they had enjoyed, to expose to view the weaknesses of the poor and sadly limited life, and she at least should never forget that when orphaned, she had found there a second home. Whereupon the pert girl, who in Geoffroy's presence did not at all approve of having this well-merited sermon addressed to her, only replied with a couple of proverbs, "Each bird sings according as it is fed," and--

"To tell the simple truth I ween,
May be unwise, but 'tis not sin."

But she was all the more vexed and put out because the handsome youth by her side treated her as so perfect a stranger, while she for her part remembered him so well, and how glad she used to be when their childish games were so arranged that "Jaufret"--so they called him then--should be on her side to deliver her from a dragon, or to wake her by a kiss out of magic sleep. And while she now engaged the servant in commonplace talk, she could not help stealing frequent glances at her other companion, noticing how handsome and manly he had become; how with a slight turn of the wrist he could rein in a fiery horse, and yet had such a sad and earnest beauty in his eyes as would have become the very saints in the church of Mont Salvair. What could make him so silent, she kept wondering; and if she were below the attention of so noble a gentleman, how was it that he abstained from all attempt to find favour in the eyes of his lady-cousin? All this perplexed her so much that she gradually left off talking, and entirely forgot the slight anger she had felt at the admonition received. Meanwhile the youth on his side, who had so impatiently watched for this day, wished, as the sun rose higher, that it had never dawned upon him at all, instead of looking down on his joy and sorrow with so heartless a splendour. It is true that from his boyish years he had preserved the image of his cousin as his ideal of all beauty and loveliness, but the spark had smouldered on as a quiet memory in a well-guarded portion of his heart; but now at the first greeting from her lips, at the perfume that floated over to him from her hair, this spark burst out into a mighty flame, and he suffered tortures such as he had never known before. And then her apparent estrangement from him increased his anguish, for although he did not know whether it were disinclination to him personally, or the calm contempt of the Count's daughter for her father's poor retainer which closed her lips and kept her eyes averted, he had leisure enough in these silent hours to estimate with miserable accuracy the social gulf between them, and the duty of crushing every foolish hope. Then, again, his thoughts turned to conjectures as to what possessor he would have to make over the jewel entrusted to him, whether her hand would be given away without her heart, or whether her father in the gloom of sickness had so yearned for his only child, as suddenly to recall her to his deserted home. Even were it so, would his case be less hopeless if he had longer time to learn the full preciousness of the treasure which must at length be surrendered to another?

Thus he sank more and more into a profound melancholy, so that even Garcinde, who was not herself joyous, remarked it, and asked him whether he were suffering, whether he would rest and refresh himself with a draught of wine? Geoffroy, crimsoning to the roots of his hair, excused himself for his absent mood, accounted for it by a sleepless night, and did all he could to appear more cheerful. And at noon when they halted in a wood beside a spring to recruit themselves with the provisions with which the pious sisterhood had laden the baggage-horse, his spirits in a measure revived, while Aigleta, who had long got over her fit of sullenness, recovered the audacity of her mood, and flavoured the mid-day meal with the drollest freaks of fancy. Garcinde sat in the shadow of a tall black-thorn, and patiently endured that the little witch who could not rest a moment, should adorn the whole party with garlands, even to the servant and the grazing horses, singing merry songs the while, not always of spiritual import, at which even the servant laughed, so that the young Countess rose with a grave air, removed the wreath from her brow, and proposed that they should ride on again. The last to rise from the green grass was Geoffroy; to him the spot seemed a Paradise where he would willingly have dreamed his days away, yet when he lifted his cousin into her saddle, he did not dare to bestow on the little foot that she placed in his hand, anything more than the very slightest pressure. She turned her face away from him, and he was for an instant's space veiled in the flow of soft tresses that fell down to her girdle. Then she put her horse into a gentle canter. Thus they all rode on for a while, men and beasts refreshed by their hour's repose, and even Geoffroy carried his head higher, as though the red wine that Aigleta had given him in a cup garlanded with flowers, had put new life into his veins, and inspired him with energy to enjoy the bliss of the present hour.

La Vaquiera, which they reached early in the afternoon, was a dairy-farm, beautifully situated between richest pastures and wooded grounds; until late years in the possession of the house of Malaspina, but staked and lost at play, by the Count to a neighbouring noble, Pierre de Gaillac, who had, however, something else to do than to look after herds of cattle and flocks of sheep in this quiet corner. The farmer himself and his wife, who lived here with a troop of shepherds and milkmaids, and whom Sir Hugo greeted as usual whenever he rode past, had not a notion that they no longer held under him, and they received his daughter--whom they well remembered in her childhood--with all the reverence and attention due to their young mistress. They had only a small house, as the servants slept in the stables, but they at once gave up their one sleeping-chamber to the two girls, and themselves found a resting-place in the kitchen. Geoffroy had to put up with a loft reached by a ladder, fortunately an airy one having plenty of fresh hay. It was late, however, when he betook himself to it, for the best part of the starry night had been spent in such earnest and serious converse, that his impetuous feelings were somewhat subdued, and spite of the vicinity of Garcinde, he made up for the lost sleep of the night before. The two girls, on the contrary, although they too--what with the long ride and the strong wine--owned to being very tired, yet enlivened themselves during their unrobing, by much of that seeming confidential talk common to maidens who share the same couch, and yet would fain conceal their heart's secrets from each other. For girls believe there is no better way of holding their tongue on one subject than letting it run on unguardedly on every other. "Why have you been so little glad all day long, and are you sure you are not still angry with me for all the nonsense I have talked, out of sheer delight at getting back into the world?" said Aigleta to her friend, while helping her to braid and bind her hair. "Not so, dear heart," replied her thoughtful companion, letting her delicate arms drop into her lap. "I envy you your light-heartedness, I do not censure it. But my heart is heavy. Oh, Aigleta, I used to have such happy dreams of returning to my father, of breathing free air, and seeing the world as it lay beyond the hill of Mont Salvair. And now--"

"Does not the world seem to you fair enough, the sky blue enough, the meadows green enough, the stream clear enough to reflect back your beauty?" laughed Aigleta.

"How can you mock at my anxiety and gloom?" returned the Count's daughter. "Just think--on the very day when I re-enter the world, my dear father is absent from me. I cannot grasp his hand or hear his voice. Oh believe me, there is something mysterious, dark, perhaps appalling, that is kept back from me, the foreboding of which has--spite of all the sunshine--darkened for me this much longed for day."

"Nonsense!" said Aigleta. "Shall I tell you where the cloud lay that threw its dull shadow over you? On the brow and in the eyes of that simple Sir Jaufret. Deny it as you will I know what I know, and have not got eyes in my head for nothing. And have you not, indeed, every right to be offended with his uncourteous, indifferent manner? Fie! To make such a melancholy face when one has the good fortune to serve as knight to two sweet young ladies, one of whom, moreover, is a high-born countess and his own first cousin! And this evening, too, when we walked round the pastures, could he not have found something more lively to talk of than the stars above us, and whether we went to them after death, and horrid subjects of that kind? I think he might have found some stars nearer at hand, and only to talk about dying we need not have left Mont Salvair! He is certainly--as one can see--likely to die of love, but that is no excuse. Such gloom may do very well for poems when he writes you them, but while you were together and alone--for as for me, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep--"

"What art thou prating about, foolish one?" said Garcinde, trying to look angry, although a sweet emotion sent the blood tingling to her cheeks. "Dost thou not know why he is so grave and sad, and never, indeed, will be quite happy all his life long? Not though that he need take his birth thus to heart. If he would only go to the court of some foreign prince, and there gain renown, no one would reproach him with what he could not help; and he might win wealth, and land, and fame, and be a fit wooer for any count's daughter. But even though he be a dreamer, and does not understand his own advantage, he is not so foolish as to turn his thoughts towards me, for well he knows my father would never give me to him. Nay I rather think that he hates me as being my father's daughter--above him in position--though I for my part would always behave to him as in our childish days, and do everything in my power to renew the old intimacy."

"Hm," said Aigleta, as she unlaced her bodice, "it may be that you are right, and yet I wish he hated _me_ in the way he hates _thee_. I should desire nothing better, but I am a servant's daughter. Who would give himself the trouble to look and see whether I deserve love or hate? And yet I think," and so saying she shook her thick hair over her white shoulders, "it might be well worth their while too, and whether high-born or not, you shall see, _Domna Comtessa_, in the net of these black hairs. I shall catch gay-plumaged birds as well as you with your gold threads, and even if that black crow Jaufret keeps out of them--"

"Any one who heard you speak," interposed Garcinde, "would think that you came from some quite other place than a convent. But now we will go to sleep. I wish morning were come and that I had embraced my father."

They lay quiet for an hour, yet neither of them closed an eye; the bed at the farm was certainly harder than their Mont Salvair couch, but that alone would not have troubled the repose of girls of eighteen. They both held their breath, and kept motionless, till Aigleta suddenly sat up and said, "I never believed the nuns when they said the outer world would steal away our rest; and now see, we have hardly put our foot outside their gates, and already sleep flies from us. And yet we are not even in love, I at least am not. Oh, Blessed Lady of Mont Salvair, what _will_ happen when it comes to that! You of course will have some distinguished husband, and then lovers as many as you will, but I--suppose one took my fancy whom I could not have--I believe I should set a wood on fire and jump into the midst of it!"

"What are you dreaming about?" answered Garcinde, without raising her head from the pillow. "Do you suppose that I would take a husband whom I did not love, or that my father would give me to any one against whom my heart rebelled? Do you not know that he loves nothing on earth so well as me, and could have no greater sorrow than to see me suffer? Go to sleep--the wine has got into your head. I think you have been let out of the convent too soon."

"Amen," said the merry girl in the deep voice of the abbess; then she laughed out loud, but left off talking, and was asleep before her young mistress.

The next morning the horses had stood saddled and pawing the ground in the courtyard, for a good hour before the girls appeared on the threshold. They nodded familiarly to Geoffroy, and chatted a little with the good people of La Vaquiera. Then they spurred their horses in order to get over the four hour's ride to Malaspina, before the mid-day heat.

Again but little was said on the way; the youth, spite of his sound sleep, was still paler and sadder than on the previous day; even Aigleta seemed lost in thought, bit her full lip, and now and then sighed. Moreover they had difficulty to keep up with the young Countess, who urged her horse as though the wild huntsmen were on her track. Once she turned to Geoffroy, who kept near her for fear the over-urged palfrey should make a false step. "Do you think my father will ride to meet us?" she enquired, and anxiously waited for his answer. "I should think so," replied the youth without daring to look at her, for his mind, too, was full of gloomy forebodings.

When they first came in sight of the Castle of Malaspina, Garcinde suddenly drew bridle, and shading her eyes with her hand gazed for several moments at the well-remembered ancient pile. The road wound like a bright narrow ribbon through the short-cut grass, and they could see every pebble on it. But of any horseman crossing the drawbridge and hastening to meet them, nothing was to be seen; even when they came so near that the warder blew his horn, everything remained unchanged, and there was no sign of the festal reception of which the girl had dreamed. The porter appeared in the open gateway, and behind him a few shabby-looking retainers, who stood round as if confused, and for the first time aware how high the grass and nettles grew between the flags in the courtyard. Geoffroy had made some pretext for remaining behind, for his heart bled at the idea of witnessing such a return home. For although the innocent, inexperienced girl could not take in the whole extent of the change--as she had only a childish recollection of the place, and it was not written over the gateway that scarcely the bare walls remained in her father's possession--yet the paucity of domestics, and their thread-bare attire, might well startle her; and above all, that her own parent had not the heart to welcome his beloved child in front of the ancestral dwelling!

"Is my father ill?" she cried, as without awaiting help she leapt from her saddle.

"It is only a sharp attack of gout, lady," replied the porter, glancing up at an arched window that looked into the court, as if expecting that at least his master would beckon from thence to his daughter, even though his ailments might prevent his descending the stairs. But the window was empty, and a blush suffused Garcinde's face as her glance, which had taken the same direction, came back unsatisfied and distressed. "I will go upstairs to him, Aigleta," she whispered, "wait here till I call you."

She went, the others descended from their horses and made them over to the servants. Geoffroy after exchanging a few rapid words with the porter: "Anything new?" "All as it was," took his own horse to the stable, unbridled him, and then crossed the courtyard on his way to his little turret without taking any notice of Aigleta, who, lost and forsaken, sat on a stone bench amongst the menials, and could have wept heartily over so disappointing a return to the much desired home, had there not been too many lookers on. She saw the young man take his way to the well-known rose-embowered tower, but his head hung down so dejectedly that she did not venture to address him, or ask him to let her go with him to their old play-ground. As for him, he seemed to have forgotten that he was in the world, or that he walked among men. Although he had only had a little bread and wine in the early morning, and it was now past noon, he had no thought of eating or drinking, but sat in his turret-chamber on his mother's bed, motionless like one struck by lightning, his widely-opened eyes fixed on his father's song-book, which on his entrance he had taken down from the shelf and opened out on his knee. Yet he did not seem to be reading, but rather listening to some words that his own heart was setting to the music, whether glad or sorrowful none could have guessed from his stony aspect. All at once, however, he started back into life, and his dark face flushed deeply; he sprang so hastily from the bed that the song-book slipped from his knee and fell open upon the flags, then he held his breath, and listened to some sound in the garden of roses below. Yes, it was her step, no other human being's was like it, and now her hand was upon the turret-door, now she crossed the dark and narrow hall, now she opened the inner door and stepped over its threshold into his small chamber.

As she entered, his eyes involuntarily fell, and he sought to disguise his emotion by lifting from the floor the parchment-book that lay between her and him, and now that he raised his eyes to her he started, horror-stricken. For her face but lately blooming with youth and health, had so changed in one short hour that she seemed to have traversed years of hopeless grief.

"I disturb you, cousin," she said in a voice from which the music had fled, "but I come to you because I think you are my friend--perhaps the only one I have. Let me sit down, I am mortally weary. No, not on the bed; my dear aunt died there. Oh, Jaufret, if I only knew that it would be my death-bed too--and that my heart would grow still the moment I lay down there--God is my witness I would throw myself upon it at once!"

She sank down on the seat that he offered her, hiding her face in her hands, and tears streaming between her white fingers. "For God's sake, cousin," he cried, "you break my heart. What has happened? What has your father said?"

Then she removed her hands from her face, pressed back her tears, and looked steadfastly at him. "I will not weep," she said, "it is childish. If all is true that I have heard, tears are too weak for such sorrow. But I want to hear it from you, cousin. Is it indeed the case that the Count of Malaspina is a beggar, and that his daughter has nothing to call her own except the clothes she wears? You are silent, Jaufret. Be it so then; what should I care for that? I have long had a foreboding that there was trouble before me, and as to poverty, I have seen _that_ in the convent, and know it, and it does not affright me. But shame, Jaufret, shame--"

"By the blood of our Lord," he exclaimed. "Who dares to say that shame threatens you so long as I can bear a sword, and lay a lance in rest?"

She did not appear to hear him. Then after a pause in which she, as if unconsciously, drew her rosary through her hands, she shudderingly enquired, "Do you know the Count de Gaillac?" The youth started as though he had trodden upon a snake, he muttered a curse between his teeth, and convulsively clutched the silken coverlet.

"You seem to know him," the maiden continued, "and I know him too. About two years ago a hunting-party came to Mont Salvair, a great gathering of knights and fair dames. They all sat themselves down to feast in the wood that bordered the convent garden, and we from our shrubbery could see what was going on; the drinking, the banqueting; and could hear the songs that the Count's mistress--a tall, proud-looking woman--sang to her lute. Oh cousin, what dreadful human beings there are! Even then I felt a terror come over me, and was glad when the abbess came to drive us out of the garden, and set us down in the refectory to our spinning-wheels. There nothing was heard but the whispering of the nuns, every one of whom knew something of the wildness and godlessness of the Count de Gaillac. For they know everything in the convent, know all about the outer world and its ways, otherwise they would die of tedium. Then the abbess came in, told me that the Count was standing at the grating, and desired to see me, as he was the bearer of a message from my father. I do not know how I had strength enough to rise, and walk across the long hall to her; then, however, she took my hand in her mother-like clasp, and whispered, 'Remember that thou art here in a consecrated place; here the evil one himself could have no power over thee.' So saying she led me to where the godless man with his hawk's eyes in his wolf's face, was waiting behind the grating, the handsome, bold-looking woman by his side. They were laughing loud when we appeared, but suddenly grew silent. I heard the Count say something in Italian to the lady that I perfectly understood, but could not contradict. What his message to me was I never knew, but it cut me to the heart to hear him name my father, and call him his best friend. A cloud darkened my eyes,--when I came to myself again, they were gone. The abbess never alluded to this visit, and forbade the nuns ever to name Pierre de Gaillac before me. Thus I never heard of him again, till to-day, when my own father has told me that on one wretched night, after gambling away the remnant of his possessions to this man, he had staked the hand of his daughter upon the last throw of the dice, and lost that too."

A sound forced its way from the young man's breast, a hollow cry of horror and of rage, but his limbs seemed paralysed, and his tongue bound, for he did not speak a word, and there was such stillness in the small chamber, that the grinding of the sand beneath his feet was plainly heard.

"You hate my father," the girl at length continued with downcast eyes but calm voice. "Oh, Jaufret, I have known this for many years, and it has grieved me enough. But what I have now told you ought not to increase your hatred, for if there be one miserable being on earth, who in the burning torture of his soul already endures hell-fire, and expiates his sins, believe me, cousin, it is the Count of Malaspina, who would gladly change places with the dropsical cripple at his castle gate, if only he could undo what he has done. He writhed as though impaled at the stake, and buried his face in the pillows that I might not see him while he told me how it all came about; how they clouded his mind with hippocras; how at every throw they pressed the goblet into his hand, till at length the mocking laughter of the Count seemed to awake him from a dream, and he gazed with sheer horror at the abyss into which he had hurled his last possession, the happiness of his child. He did everything he could to propitiate his malicious enemy and conqueror, nay he offered to be his serf, his bondservant, if only he might pay the fearful debt thus. But the Count had merely laughed and said, 'A Jew's bargain indeed you would make with me, my friend, to offer me a plucked old cock for a plump young hen. I have more servants to feed than I care for, but a young wife I do want, for you know that I am getting old, and I am not so fond of my mistress as to wish to leave her my lands and castles after my death. Moreover, I fear she might make me a very bad return, and before my eyes were closed, drink with some younger fellow to my approaching end. But your daughter has been chastely and piously brought up, and will convert me--grey in sin as I am--to an orderly life. Therefore I would not take all the treasures on earth in exchange for her small hand, which can alone open the door of Heaven to me; and so I charge you by your honour that within three weeks you bring her to celebrate the marriage here in Gaillac. I on my part, as my gift on the morning after the nuptials, will make over to you all the woods and lands that I have won from you of late years, in order that your child need not provide for you like a beggar, but that you may live out your old age in state and comfort.' And so saying he called for his servants to light him to bed, and left my father alone."

At this moment Geoffrey made a gesture as though about to speak; but she rose quickly, advanced towards him, and laid her small, cold, trembling hand beseechingly on his clenched fist. "Cousin," said she, "do not speak yet. I know what you would say: that it would be better to go forth as a beggar from home and hearth, and to wander through the wide world, than to endure disgrace, and give up body and soul to a demon. But consider that my father has nothing on earth besides his honour, his sacred, inviolable, knightly word, and that it would ill become me, his daughter, to counsel him to break it. At the same time, I feel that if there were no other means of fulfilling the pledge given, and paying this debt than by giving my hand to this abhorred suitor, I should prefer what is honourable in the sight of God, to what men call honour. But let us hope, my friend, that this last alternative may be spared me. I propose to write a letter to the man who has us in his power, and you--if you are really my friend--you must take it this very day to Gaillac, for until I know the answer I cannot lay me down to sleep. But do you rest here awhile and take some food. I will go and write the letter; they always commended my skill in writing at the convent; God grant that it may stand me in good stead now! See, I leave you much calmer than I was when I came, although you have not spoken one word of comfort to me; but here in this place where we were so happy as children, here where it seems as if no bad spirits had power over me, here--I cannot persuade myself that the hideous dream is true, and the father's honour pledged to the child's disgrace."

She paused for a moment, but when the youth bent before her with a deep sigh, and pressed her hand to his lips in token that she might depend upon him, she laid her other hand affectionately on his shoulder, and took leave of him, saying, "Aigleta will bring you the letter. Farewell, dear friend, and God go with you," and then on the threshold of the door, folding her hands after kissing the image of the Virgin on the wall, she repeated in a low voice the following prayer:

"Maires de Crist, ton filh car
Prega per nos, quens ampar
E quens gardo de cazer
A la fin en desesper."

Then she left him alone.

* * * * *

A day and night passed away, and yet another day and night. Geoffroy did not return.

Sir Hugo never missed him; he was, indeed, accustomed to the youth going his own way, and weeks often passed without his seeing him, and at the present time he hated the sight of any human being. He would sit for hours in one place in his room. The food carried in to him remained untouched, but he drank wine greedily, as though seeking forgetfulness from it; forgetfulness of himself, of the past, and the future.

On the evening of the first day, when Garcinde had gone to see him, he could not even face his own child, but when she approached him, and gently threw her arm over his shoulder, his whole frame was convulsed, and slipping from his chair on to the stone floor, sobbing he clasped her knees and pressed his brow against her feet, so that she had difficulty in raising him and leading him back to his couch. Since then she avoided his chamber, for if she had tried to comfort him by telling him the reason of Geoffroy's absence, her own desponding heart would have contradicted her words.

The third morning she woke early out of a painful dream, and called to Aigleta who shared her couch: "Do you hear nothing, dear? I thought I caught the sound of horses' hoofs beyond the drawbridge--no, I was only dreaming. Oh, Aigleta! if I have also made _him_ unhappy--sent _him_ to his ruin. But hark! the sound comes nearer--I hear the gate creak on its hinges--it is he. Mother of God! What does he bring--Life or Death!"

She had sprung up and thrown a cloak around her. Aigleta, too, hastily rose and bound up her hair; the rosy morning light shone into the room, and coloured the pale, worn face of the Count's daughter. She would have gone to meet Geoffroy had her knees supported her; as it was she was standing in the middle of the room when he entered. He, too, was pale, and as he bent before her, it struck Aigleta that he did not raise the leathern cap which covered one-half of his brow. But Garcinde saw nothing but his eyes which sought to avoid hers.

"You bring no comfort?" she said. "I knew it." Then seating herself on a bench in the window, she listened impassively to what he narrated with a faltering voice.

He reached Gaillac that same evening, for he had not spared his horse. When he was ushered into the hall where the Count was, he found him at supper, a couple of his riotous companions with him, and the one of his mistresses who just then was highest in his favour. On a low stool at his feet crouched a mis-shapen dwarf, who played the part of fool and fed his dogs. The beautiful bold woman sat by his side, and poured him out red wine into a silver goblet, putting her lips to it before he drained it at a draught. "They all looked at me," said Geoffroy, "as though I arrived very opportunely to divert their dulness by some novelty or other, for none of them appeared in spirits except the fool, who with shallow jests that waked no laughter, went on throwing fragments of food to the dogs. I delivered your letter without speaking a word, and while the Count unfolded and read it, I could not but think how she who wrote it would have been received at such a table. The thought made the blood rush to my head, and such a giddiness came over me that I was obliged to lean upon my sword. One of the guests who noticed this ordered that wine should be brought me, for I must be weary and thirsty after my rapid ride, but I shook my head and said I would only await the answer, and then return at once. Meanwhile the Count had read the letter, and made it over in silence to his neighbour; she had scarcely run her eyes over the first few lines before she burst out into loud laughter. 'A sermon!' she cried, 'God's death! You are going to get a saint for a wife,' and then she began to read the letter aloud, line for line; and the words that would have made stones weep and moved the gates of hell, waked only mocking echoes here. Blasphemies and impious jests broke out, interrupting the reading. Then the woman rose, and casting a proud look upon the Count, said with curled lip, 'The saint may come and welcome. I was averse to her, thinking she might turn your heart from us all and rule here alone, but now that I have read her letter I am not afraid of her. You, Pierre de Gaillac are not the man to wear a hair-shirt and a prickly girdle. You are accustomed to the fires of hell, and the air of heaven would but chill you. In hell, however, there is more joy over one who sickens of penance and returns to his evil ways than over ninety-and-nine lost souls. Whereupon I empty this goblet to the last drop, and call upon you to pledge me.' She drank, the Count drew her closer to his side, and whispered something into her ear that made her laugh loud. They all seemed to have forgotten the messenger who had brought the letter; the letter itself was handed to the others, and when it came back to the Count, the dwarf snatched at it and cried, 'You have not read it rightly, godmother. Now listen how it ought to be sung to move you all to laughter,' and he began to read it once more aloud in the manner in which they chant litanies in church, wagging head and hands like a preacher giving out the blessing, and if they had all laughed the first time, they knew not now what to do, they held their sides and groaned out responses. At last rage got the better of me. I sprang upon the shameless fellow, tore the letter from him, and struck him such a blow that he rolled over backwards, and upset the silver vessel that held the food for the dogs. 'If I am to obtain no answer,' I cried, 'worthy of the lady who has sent me here, I will at least silence the daring mouth that has mocked at a noble virgin, and dragged the words of a pure and lofty soul through the mire!'

"For a moment there was silence. I even thought I might pass through the hall unhindered, but I had reckoned without my host. Servants rushed in, the guests raged and railed at me, the dogs howled, but the Count still sat in his place, pale as death, and motionless with fury, and the woman by his side shot fiery looks at me. When--a quarter of an hour later--I found myself on damp straw behind a bolted door, a wound in my head, and darkness before my eyes, I thanked my Saviour that I was delivered from the neighbourhood of those brutal men, and could no longer hear them blaspheme the name dearest to me. I do not know how I passed the night and the following day. I think I must have slept through them, but about the middle of the second night, I was gently waked by a soft hand passing over my face, and the light of a small lamp shone into my eyes. It was the Count's mistress who stood before me there, and signed to me to be silent; gently she led me up the broken stairs, through empty passages and halls to a narrow door of which she had the key. 'I cannot let you starve to death in unbroken darkness down there,' said she. 'Outside you will find your horse and something to eat at the saddle-bow. Fly! if ever thou needest a friend come to Carcassonne, and ask for Agnes the Sardinian. You will easily find me out.' She waited an answer, perhaps she had even dreamed of a tenderer farewell, but as I was silent she opened the door, and again passed her hand over my blood-stained hair. 'Poor youth,' said she, 'thou deservedst a better fate.' Then I leapt into the saddle, and spurred my horse hard, and thus I rode on without stopping, for in the night air my senses gradually awoke and the fever of my wound left me. And here I am--and this is all the answer that I bring back."

So saying he bared his head, and showed his brow--a thick curl of his hair lay upon the wound and seemed to have stanched its bleeding.

Then Garcinde rose from her seat and advanced towards him as though she had something to say, but she stopped short and remained speechless with downcast eyes before him. Aigleta was the one to speak. "I will go and bring linen and salves to dress the wound properly," said she; then she looked at her friend as though she had some quite other thought, secretly sighed, and left the two alone. And scarcely had she turned away when Geoffroy fell on his knees before the fair and silent mourner, and cried as he seized her hands' and pressed them passionately to his heart: "Command me--what shall I do? For my life is worthless to me unless I can offer it up to thee. Never should I have betrayed the sweet pangs I endured, if sorrow had not overshadowed thee. But now thou art no longer the Countess, the proud daughter of Malaspina, at whom I gazed as at a star far above me. Thine is a poor unfortunate tortured heart which will not despise another heart which devotes itself to thee for life and death. Oh, cousin! loveliest love, say but one word, and I mount again the horse that still stands saddled in the courtyard, to ride back to Gaillac, and plunge this dagger into the breast of the enemy of thy honour and peace, in the midst of all his boon companions, even though his dogs should tear me to pieces the next moment!"

Then she bent down towards him, and for the first time a smile played over her pale face. "Jaufret," said she, pressing her lips to his blood-stained brow; "the fever of thy wound shows in thy speech. Go and lie down, and let Aigleta--who understands such tasks--wash away the blood and dress thy wound, and then refresh thyself with sleep and food. For by our dear lady of Mont Salvair I accept the life you offer me. I am no rich countess to disdain such a gift, and yet I am rich enough to repay it. While you were relating your adventure--hideous and cruel enough to destroy all hope--I was considering what I would and could do. But this is not the time for talking. See, here comes your doctress, I make you over to her, and you must do all she tells you, and if you are tractable and obedient, be sure, cousin, you shall not rue it! See that he sleeps and gets strong, Aigleta," she said to her friend, who nodded, and looked as though she understood more than was uttered. Meanwhile, the youth who still gazed at Garcinde in utmost perplexity, had risen from his knees, and loosed her hands. He could not understand how she could be so composed since he had brought her no hope. But half from the exhaustion of his wound, and half from his blind confidence in her strong and lofty nature, he parted from her with a lightened heart, and followed Aigleta who had now lost all her gaiety. "What can she be planning?" said he to the girl, as they both went down the stair together. "Who can tell--obey and sleep," said Aigleta with a quick hoarse voice, and then turning her head away, she added, "The Lord gives to those He loves in sleep."

She led him into his turret hermitage; she saw to his wound, which was indeed but slight, and already disposed to heal; she furnished him with all that he could need for refreshment, and then seeing that his eyes were growing heavy she left him.

She herself, however, did not instantly return to Garcinde; she still lingered among the roses, made a nosegay, pulled it to pieces again, and when at last she returned to the castle, her eyes were red, and she washed them long with cold water that no one should observe it.

Geoffroy only slept a few hours: then he awoke a new man, with brow cool, thanks to Aigleta's salve, and heart on fire, thanks to the mysterious hope-encouraging words of his cousin. Like a wanderer on whom the fairy of the woods has bestowed the wishing-rod, by which at the hour of midnight he may find and possess himself of a treasure, and who dreams away the intervening time, so the youth sat hour after hour, gazing only at the sunbeam which slowly moved along the stone floor, and listening only to the song of the birds around his turret. No one came to disturb him: the servants lay yawning in shady corners of the court, the horses were stamping in the stable to shake off the flies; both girls had locked themselves up in their castle chamber, and did not appear all day. Once only through his narrow window did he catch sight of Sir Hugo, who stepped out on the balcony before his chamber, and looked down into the castle moat as though considering whether it would not be better for him to dash himself to pieces there. His hair and beard had become white as snow, his face was worn to a shadow; soon he vanished again like a restless ghost. And now the sun went down, and the moon rose above the wood, and silvered the rose-garden around Geoffrey's tower. The birds were silent, but the bull-frogs in the moat seemed to croak the louder, and in the distance a nightingale's song was heard. It was so light in the tower that the youth could read every letter in his parchment book, but he knew not what he was reading.