Love Among the Ruins Part 27

The man smiled optimistically.

"And you came to tell me this?"

"Yes."

"I thank you."

The wind moved through the trees; a fir-cone came pattering through the branches and fell at their feet. On the cliff a horn blared; its throaty cry came echoing faintly through the trees.

Flavian looked towards the gold of the west. His mood was calm and deliberate; he had his enthusiasms in leash for the moment, for there were more mundane matters in his mind--matters that were not savoury, however crimson shone the ideal years.

"I have thrown down the glove," he said, "for good or evil, honour or dishonour. I will tell you the whole truth."

Yeoland, watching his face, felt her impatient dreads goad her to the quick.

"Will you talk for ever?" she said to him.

"Take the core then. I am going to rend my bonds as I would rend flax.

I have appealed to the Church; I have poured out gold."

"To the point, messire."

"I shall divorce my wife."

He threw his head back, and challenged the world in her one person. Her good favour was more to him than the patronage of Pope or King. It was in his mind that she should believe the worst of him from the beginning, so that in some later season he might not emulate Lucifer, toppled out of the heaven of her heart. She should have the truth from the first, and build her opinion of him on no fanciful basis. Even in this justice to the more sinister side of his surroundings, he was an idealist, thorough and enthusiastic.

"So you must understand, madame, that I am not without blemishes, not without things that I myself would rather see otherwise. With me it is a question of going to h.e.l.l for a woman, or getting rid of her. Being an egotist, I choose the latter alternative."

Yeoland still evaded his eyes.

"And the woman loves you?"

"Not an atom; she only cares to be called the Lady of Gambrevault, Signoress of Avalon, the first dame in the south."

"Why do you tell me this?"

"Madame, have I need of more words? It is for this: that you might not picture me as I am not, or form any false conception of me. I have bared my moral skeleton to you. Perhaps you will never know what it costs a man at times to make his mind as gla.s.s to the woman he honours above the whole world."

"Well?"

"It is because I honour you that I have goaded myself to tell you the whole truth."

Her verdict was more sudden and more human than he might have expected.

"Messire, you are a brave man," she said; "I believe I am beginning to trust you."

The sky flamed into sunset; the tracery of the trees seemed webbed with gold into s.h.i.+mmering domes and fans of quivering light. In the distance, the great cliff stood out darkly from the scarlet caverns of the west. The pine tops rose like the black spires of some vast city.

Above, floated clouds, effulgent mounts of fire, hurled from the abysmal furnace of the sun.

Flavian came two steps nearer to the woman, leaning against the tree.

"Give me my due," he said; "I have uncovered the difficult workings of my heart, I have shown you the inner man in his meaner mould. Suffer me to speak of my manhood in G.o.dlier words. I have shown you Winter; let me utter forth Spring."

Yeoland turned and faced him at last.

"You have risked your life and my honour long enough," she said, "I am going back to the cliff."

"And I with you, as far as the stairway."

"To the threshold of death."

"What care I if I tread it at your side?"

She turned homewards with obstinate intent, and the mild hauteur of a good woman. The man followed her, went with her step for step, looking in her face.

"Hear my confession," he said; "you shall have it before you leave me.

For the sake of your honour, I hold my soul by the collar. But--but, I shall win liberty, liberty. When I am free, ah, girl, girl, I shall flash golden wings in the face of the sun. I shall soar to you that I may look into your eyes, that I may touch your hands, and breathe the warm summer of your soul. I want G.o.d, I want purity, I want the Eternal peace, I want your heart. I have said the whole; think of me what you will."

Twilight had gathered; all the violet calmness of the night came down upon the world. Under the shadows of the tall trees, the girl was deeply stirred beyond her own compa.s.sion. She halted, hesitated, went suddenly near the man with her face turned heavenwards like a new-spread flower. Her eyes were very wistful, and she spoke almost in a whisper.

"You have told me the whole truth, you have shown me your whole soul?"

"As I serve you, madame, I have kept nothing back."

"Ah, messire, I will speak to you the truth in turn. G.o.d be merciful to me, but you have come strangely near my heart. These are bitter words for my soul. Ah, messire, if you have any honour for me, trust me that I aspire to heaven. I cannot suffer you to come deeper into my life."

The man held out his hands.

"Why, why?"

"Because in following me, you go innocently to your death."

He lifted up his arms, and leapt into heroics like an Apollo leaping into a blood-red sky.

"What care I; you speak in riddles; can I fear death?"

"Messire, messire, it is the woman who fears. I tell you this, because, because--G.o.d help me----"

She fled away, but that night he did not follow her.

XIX

As a wind sweeps clamorous into a wood, so Modred and his fellows, household knights, streamed into the great hall of Avalon, where the Lord Flavian sat at supper. Bearers of angry steel, fulminators of vengeance, vociferous, strong, they poured in through the screens like a mill race, bearing a tossed and impotent figure in their midst. Their swords yelped and flashed over this bruised fragment of humanity.