His dark, eager face was near hers now
"Is it, then, true—"
"You find it so hard to believe?"
"That you love me? That I seem no longer your enemy?"
"My enemy? You? Who risked so much—saved my life! Ah, no, no! Do you not remember," softly, "he, too, said—'Forget!'"
"I only remember I have long loved you! For me have you ever been the princess—who dwelt in the clouds—in a palace, enchanted—" Her face changed. "That saddens you! Forgive me!"
"It seems like a dream—that life, then! All made up of lightness and gaiety; courtiers and fine masques, until—" Beneath the bright gold of her hair, my lady's brow knit.
"Until?"
"Nay; I know not until—just when! Only, for long, I seem to have lived in a world, unreal and false. Last night, when in the garden, I felt stifled. This marriage! Arranged—for what?" She made a quick gesture. "The words came—had to come—though they hurt my lord's pride; touched his vanity! Nothing deeper! It was gone. Besides—"
My lady stopped. "Go on!" he urged, his voice eager.
"That is all. At least, all I would acknowledge to myself, then."
"And now?" His arm tightened; he held my lady close. "Now?"
Her lips lifted; though silent, made answer in the abandonment of the moment, the past and all its vicissitudes vanished; only the present held them—the present and the future, beautiful as the horizon, now rosy and glowing beneath the warm touch of the dawn.
The tide came in and the tide went out.
"Mon capitaine must have changed his mind," said old Pierre at the inn. And he gazed toward a ship, stranded on the sands of the harbor.
THE END