the morning sunlight poured through the window and struck upon denise as she stood leaning against the door that marpasse had closed on her. the first impulse had been one of anger, the anger of one caught in an ambuscade. for it was not grimbald that she saw, but aymery, propped against a pillow, with a face like wax, his eyes shining at her, eyes full of that truth which she had sought to shun.
“denise!”
he held out his hands to her, rising in the bed so that the sunlight fell upon his head and shoulders. and denise, leaning against the door, found her anger sinking into a kind of stupor. her face was as white as aymery’s, and she shrank like a bird when the hand of the fowler comes into the trap.
aymery’s eager face was still luminous, as though the soul shone through the flesh. denise’s hood was drawn, yet beneath it he caught the gleam of her splendid hair. she did not move or utter a word, but stood there helplessly, hearing her own heart beating like a thing that struggles to be free.
there was a sudden sense of a shadow stealing across the room. the man’s face had clouded. a troubled, questioning look came into the eyes, the look of a dog trying to understand. his hands sank slowly to the bed, and were no longer stretched out to her, but lay open, palms upward, the hands of a man waiting for alms from heaven.
for the moment denise saw nothing but those hands. the rush of blind anger against marpasse went out before a spasm of compassion. the silence of the room seemed the silence of a great church where the holy blood is uplifted. then a mystery of infinite, dim things swept over her like a cloud of incense. she shivered, and held her breath.
“denise.”
she struggled to find words.
“i thought that it was grimbald here. marpasse deceived me.”
how poor and miserly the words seemed, and the sense of their ineffectual coldness drove her to glance at aymery’s face. he was lying back in the shadow, his eyes watching her with that same puzzled, questioning, and wistful look. she saw them fill suddenly with understanding, and the generous gleam that followed, humbled her heart.
“i did not know——” he began.
“marpasse told me——”
she bit her lips, and was silent.
“denise—it was no trick of mine, god knows that!”
she leant against the door, hiding her face.
“i lost you—after gaillard and i had ended it. they brought me here, and told me that they had found you, but that they would not bring you to me—because of my wounds. that—is everything. call marpasse. she shall open the door and let you go.”
denise glanced at him, half furtively, and that one glance seemed to make the metal of her purpose melt and flow into a stream of living fire. she turned with an inarticulate cry, and threw back her hood, letting the sunlight fall upon her face.
“lord, how can i, i who remember all the past!”
“denise!”
he was up, leaning towards her, stretching out his hands.
“god! what is all that—to me! can you not understand?”
she swayed, closing her eyes, her hands feeling the air as though she were blind.
“my heart—oh—my heart!”
“denise!”
“may the sin of it be forgiven.”
she was on her knees beside the bed, her arms flung out over it, her face hidden in the coverlet.
“lord—save me——!”
aymery’s arms went round her, and she clung to him with sudden passion, as though life were there, and love, and hope.
“hold me—keep me—let me not go! oh, but the shame of it—the selfishness! closer, closer to you! i am afraid—i am afraid!”
she was trembling like one lifted from the torture of the rack. her hands clung to him, the hands of a frightened child, and of an impassioned woman. aymery turned her in his arms, so that her hair fell down across the bed, and her face was under his.
“rest here, my heart. who—on god’s earth—shall take you from me?”
their eyes met and held in one long look.
“lord, lord—ah—do not pity me,” she said, “not in the way that hurts a woman’s heart.”
aymery kissed her upon the mouth.
“god forgive me,” he said, “if ever i have made you think that.”
meanwhile marpasse had returned, leaving grimbald in the wood-shed, and creeping softly across the room she stood listening at the closed door. such a true friend was marpasse that the two within might have forgiven her her eaves-dropping. it was no inquisitive spirit that waited there silent, and open-mouthed, listening with wet eyes to words that were sacred. marpasse soon knew the truth, and she crept away on tip-toe.
but marpasse was no sooner out of the house than a delirious mood seized her, and she ran like a girl, her wet eyes ablaze, her face exultant. there was no need for grimbald to ask her how things sped.
“love is lord of all,” she sang; “and i have the weight of a lie off my shoulders! good saints, good saints—i wish i could give you a lapful of silver!”
she laughed up to grimbald in her delight, caught him by the shoulders, and kissed him full upon the mouth.
“mea culpa, father; i am a mad fool, but my heart was in the venture, and when i am glad—like a dog—i must show it.”
the sunlight pierced the faggot wall of the shed, and burnt like golden tongues on the sombre cloth of the man’s cassock. something in grimbald’s eyes sobered marpasse abruptly. it was not anger, not an amused and fatherly tolerance, but a look in which the deep strong heart of the man betrayed itself. marpasse caught her breath, and went fiercely red under her brown skin. then, a sudden virginal softness seemed to steal over her face. she hung her head, but not foolishly. for the moment neither she nor grimbald spoke.
marpasse gave a short, curious laugh, picked up a rotten stick, and began to snap it into small pieces between her hands.
“may they be very happy,” she said; “the love of a strong man is life to a woman, father—and the children that may come of it.”
she looked up quickly at grimbald, and her bold eyes had grown like the eyes of a girl.
“i might have made a good mother—but there——!” and she threw the pieces of broken wood aside, and spread her hands “children have not come my way—nor the man who will master me,” and she was silent, staring at the ground.
grimbald’s face shone like a rock with the sunlight on it.
“to some of us such things are not given,” he said; “my children are down yonder—and yet——! i chose what i chose—when i was a lad.”
marpasse seemed to be struggling to say something that would not shape itself into words.
“it is so lonely—sometimes,” and her eyes looked into the past; “dear heart, i have often spat at the thought of myself! it is always ‘the might have been,’ with some of us. the world often leers at a woman, father, when it offers her a penny. i was just as tall as the harvest wheat when they pushed me out on the road. but i am not bad to the core, father, though few people would think it the truth.”
she heard grimbald draw his breath.
“the core of the world is a generous heart,” he said; “look at me, marpasse. many things might happen, but for what i am.”
he took marpasse’s hands, held them a moment, and then dropped them reverently, looking at her to see that she understood. and these two brave souls gazed in each other’s eyes, knowing that they could come no nearer, and that their lives might cross but never travel the same road.
yet marpasse went out from the wood-shed into the sunlight with a smile upon her face, the smile of a woman who has re-discovered mystery in herself. a look of the eyes, a few words, a touch of the hands—that was all! marpasse pressed her face between her two hands, and stood staring and staring away towards the distant woods. the scoffing voice was silent in her, the mouth strangely soft, the eyes the eyes of a young girl.
and denise, who kissed her that night, as a woman who is loved kisses the woman who loves her, saw no shadow of sadness on the brave, brown face of marpasse.
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