Part 26 (2/2)
”Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?” she said.
”Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have suffered?”
The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger.
”Go--go, I tell you,” she cried; ”stay not a day in this accursed place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save those which come forth from your own true heart.”
”Nay,” said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, ”it is too late, Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would.
The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever.”
The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who stood so erect and proud before her. ”Well, at the worst, William Douglas,” she said, ”you may never live to wear a white head, but at least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred greybeards. I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of h.e.l.l for one so desolate as I. I have bid you leave me. I have told you that which, were it known, would cost me my life. But since you will not go,--since you are strong enough to stand unblenching in the face of doom,--you shall not lose all without a price.”
She opened her arms wide, and her eyes were glorious.
”I love you,” she said, her lips thrilling towards him, ”I love you, love you, as I never thought to love any man upon this earth.”
CHAPTER x.x.xI
THE GABERLUNZIE MAN
The next morning the Chancellor came down early from his chamber, and finding Earl Douglas already waiting in the courtyard, he rubbed his hands and called out cheerfully: ”We shall be more lonely to-day, but perhaps even more gay. For there are many things men delight in which even the fairest ladies care not for, fearing mayhap some invasion of their dominions.”
”What mean you, my Lord Chancellor?” said the Douglas to his host, eagerly scanning the upper windows meanwhile.
”I mean,” said the Chancellor, fawningly, ”that his Excellency, the amba.s.sador of France, hath ridden away under cloud of night, and hath taken his fair ward with him.”
The Earl turned pale and stood glowering at the obsequious Chancellor as if unable to comprehend the purport of his words. At last he commanded himself sufficiently to speak.
”Was this resolution sudden, or did the Lady Sybilla know of it yesternight?”
”Nay, of a surety it was quite sudden,” replied the Chancellor. ”A message arrived from the Queen Mother to the Marshal de Retz requesting an immediate meeting on business of state, whereupon I offered my Castle of Edinburgh for the purpose as being more convenient than Stirling. So I doubt not that they are all met there, the young King being of the party. It is, indeed, a quaint falling out, for of late, as you may have heard, the Tutor and the Queen have scarce been of the number of my intimates.”
The Earl of Douglas appeared strangely disturbed. He paid no further attention to his host, but strode to and fro in the courtyard with his thumbs in his belt, in an att.i.tude of the deepest meditation.
The Chancellor watched him from under his eyebrows with alternate apprehension and satisfaction, like a timid hunter who sees the lion half in and half out of the snare.
”I have a letter for you, my Lord Douglas,” he said, after a long pause.
”Ah,” cried Douglas, with obvious relief, ”why did you not tell me so at first. Pray give it me.”
”I knew not whether it might afford you pleasure or no,” answered the Chancellor.
”Give it me!” cried Douglas, imperiously, as though he spoke to an underling.
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