I was still very angry. "Yes, by Heaven! we waste time," said I, starting toward her, "and I waste kindness and forbearance, madame, on one who has naught but disdain for me in payment. A robber, am I—a strong man who preys upon weakness? Ay? Then I'll play the robber's part to its end!"
But the girl broke from me when I would have caught her wrists, and shrank back against the farther wall, cowering with fear.
"No, no, lord! Let me be!" she cried, and real shuddering terror sobbed in her tone. "Let me be! I was—wrong! I did not mean what I—Oh, can you not see that I am desperate—half mad—that I do not know what I say or do? Let me be, lord! Oh, give me a little time, then—a day—the rest of this night—an hour—one little, little hour! I beg you, I beg you! Think, lord, what I am—a maid sore beset, alone, friendless! There is no one to help me. I am in your hands, body and soul. Oh, be merciful as you are strong and brave. Give me a little hour to pray in. It is not much—a little hour—and—I did not mean what I said. I did not mean to be scornful and bitter. I was beside myself. Look you, lord! Once you saved my life. Never wreck it now without at least granting me a little time to pray."
I dropped once more into my chair and hung my head, for I could not touch her in that guise of pleading weakness. One must feel that he struck a child,—a little, frightened, clinging child. So for another space we were silent. The maid had moved to a great chair near the window, and sat there huddled, her face turned toward the dark without, and I, sunken in my own chair, stared across at her moodily from under my brows.
"God's curse," said I at last, and with slow bitterness—"God's curse on this fever men call love! The world were a far better world without it."
"A fever, lord?" said Aziliçz of Landévennec, turning her head.
"Ay," said I, "a fever!—a fire that burns one's bones and will not be quenched—a thirst in a desert—a haunting, tempting dream that fades as one stretches out one's arms to clasp it. Ay, a fever indeed!"
"And," said Aziliçz of Landévennec, looking oddly at me—"and it has—been so with you—lord?"
"Ay, so indeed!" said I.
"Only," said she, "because you saved a young maid from death and—"
"—looked into her eyes," said I, "and felt her heart beat strong and unafraid against mine."
"Yet other maids have eyes," she said, bending her head.
"And hearts," said I, "and hair of gold and red mouths and proud souls. Ay, Countess, for this world is a broad reach; but I have not passed my days in watching and my nights in torture for them. A little child beats its little hands against the window and weeps for the moon that it cannot reach—"
"Yet a candle will suffice it," said the Countess Aziliçz, "if its attention be turned."
"I was never one to be content with a candle, lady," said I. "I ever cried for the moon that I could not reach."
"Until this night," said she.
"Until this night," said I, sighing, "and now—"
"And—now?" said she, her voice shaking a little.
"Now," said I, "that my groping hand has broken the glass of the window, I find it cannot reach the moon, after all—only the image on the window-glass."
"Then, after all," said Aziliçz of Landévennec, "the candle were better."
"Nay, lady," said I, "better the foolish groping." I rose to my feet and went toward her, and the Countess Aziliçz, very white, rose to meet me.
"Lady," said I, "once, a year gone by, I kissed your hand. Will you let me kiss it now one last time?"
"What do you—mean?" she cried, in a swift whisper. "I do not under—What do you mean?—one last time?"
"I have been a fool, lady," said I, "but, against custom, this fool will not return to his folly. Because I loved you very greatly, because, day and night, I was consumed of a fever, I thought that if she I loved were in my power, my love must be satisfied, my fever abated. I was a fool. I thought madly that because I loved I should be loved in return. I was a fool. I know now that the fever of longing is sweet beside the
