Bardelys the Magnificent

"You know, monsieur," she questioned me--"you know that I betrayed you?"

"Yes," I answered simply.

"And you can forgive me? I am sending you to your death and you have no reproaches for me! Oh, monsieur, it will kill me!"

"Hush, child!" I whispered. "What reproaches can I have for you? I know the motives that impelled you."

"Not altogether, monsieur; you cannot know them. I loved you, monsieur. I do love you, monsieur. Oh! this is not a time to consider words. If I am bold and unmaidenly, I--I--"

"Neither bold nor unmaidenly, but--oh, the sweetest damsel in all France, my Roxalanne!" I broke in, coming to her aid. "Mine was a leprous, sinful soul, child, when I came into Languedoc. I had no faith in any human good, and I looked as little for an honest man or a virtuous woman as one looks for honey in a nettle. I was soured, and my life had hardly been such a life as it was meet to bring into contact with your own. Then, among the roses at Lavedan, in your dear company, Roxalanne, it seemed that some of the good, some of the sweetness, some of the purity about you were infused anew into my heart. I became young again, and I seemed oddly cleansed. In that hour of my rejuvenation I loved you, Roxalanne."

Her face had been raised to mine as I spoke. There came now a flutter of the eyelids, a curious smile about the lips. Then her head drooped again and was laid against my breast; a sigh escaped her, and she began to weep softly.

"Nay, Roxalanne, do not fret. Come, child, it is not your way to be weak."

"I have betrayed you!" she moaned. "I am sending you to your death!"

"I understand, I understand," I answered, smoothing her brown hair.

"Not quite, monsieur. I loved you so, monsieur, that you can have no thought of how I suffered that morning when Mademoiselle de Marsac came to Lavedan.

"At first it was but the pain of thinking that--that I was about to lose you; that you were to go out of my life, and that I should see you no more--you whom I had enshrined so in my heart.

"I called myself a little fool that morning for having dreamed that you had come to care for me; my vanity I thought had deluded me into imagining that your manner towards me had a tenderness that spoke of affection. I was bitter with myself, and I suffered oh, so much! Then later, when I was in the rose garden, you came to me.