She stared at me, as thanks for this sensible advice. "And you--is it you that would enter into the Castle of Content?" she cried, with a scorn that lashed.
I said: "Madonna, bethink you, you know naught of this man your father desires you to wed. Is it not possible that he, too, may love--or may learn to love you, on provocation? You are very fair, madonna. Yours is a beauty that may draw a man to Heaven or unclose the gates of Hell, at will; indeed, even I, in my poor dreams, have seen your face as bright and glorious as is the lighted space above the altar when Christ's blood and body are shared among His worshippers. Men certainly will never cease to love you. Will he--your husband that may be--prove less susceptible, we will say, than I? Ah, but, madonna, let us unrein imagination! Suppose, were it possible, that he--even now--yearns to enter into the Castle of Content, and that your hand, your hand alone, may draw the bolt for him,--that the thought of you is to him as a flame before which honor and faith shrivel as shed feathers, and that he has loved you these many years, unknown to you, long, long before the Marquis of Falmouth came into your life with his fair face and smooth sayings. Suppose, were it possible, that he now stood before you, every pulse and fibre of him racked with an intolerable ecstasy of loving you, his heart one vast hunger for you, Adeliza, and his voice shaking as my voice shakes, and his hands trembling as my hands tremble,--ah, see how they tremble, madonna, the poor foolish hands! Suppose, were it possible,--"
"Fool! O treacherous fool!" my cousin cried, in a fine rage.
She rested her finger-tips upon his arm. "Hush!" she bade him; then turned to me an uncertain countenance that was half pity, half wonder. "Dear Will," said she, "if you have ever known aught of love, do you not understand how I love Stephen here?"
But she did not any longer speak as a lord's daughter speaks to the fool that makes mirth for his betters.
"In that case," said I,--and my voice played tricks,--"in that case, may I request that you assist me in gathering such brushwood as we may find hereabout?"
They both stared at me now. "My lord," I said, "the Exe is high, the bridge is of wood, and I have flint and steel in my pocket. The ford is five miles above and quite impassable. Do you understand me, my lord?"