Under King Constantine | Page 8

me, I am full sure, and make your peace With Torm, as worthy of your better self."
"With you? O God! Sanpeur, if I return, I go alone as I have come! Think you That I would take you with me to your death?"
"My life is yours,--how use it better, dear, Than winning peace and happiness for you?"
"But it would be keen misery for life"--
"It leadeth unto happiness and peace In the far future, if we fail not now. This life is but the filling of a trust, To prove us worthy of the life beyond, And happiness is never to be sought. If it comes,--well; if not, we shall know why. When we are happy in the sight of God."
Then there was silence on the battlements; No sound was heard but the slow measured clang Of feet that paced the stony path below;-- Gwendolaine pushed aside the wind-blown hair From her wild eyes, and gazed into Sanpeur's. As the slow minutes passed the frenzied mood Faded away from her like fevered dream; With hands clasped in a passion of devout, Complete surrender, falling at his feet She whispered, brokenly, between her sobs;
"Sanpeur, I will go back to Torm,--for you,-- Go back and live my life as best I may, If he forgive me;--and if not, receive The condemnation of my fault as meet. Your love has done what love should ever do,-- Illumined duty's path, and its far goal, Hid for a moment by a dark despair. I thought I loved you perfectly before, But my soul tells me, deep below the pain, I love you more than if you bade me stay."
He took her hands and kissed them tenderly With quiet kisses, long and calm, which held Sure promise of the strength he fain would give; Then, bending o'er her yearningly, he said In tones that stilled her spirit into rest, "God guard you, my beloved, evermore." A new force flowed into her soul from his.
She rose and left him.
He gave orders strict For her best comfort; then walked out alone, To meet and wrestle with his passion, held So long in leash by honour, free at last With overmastering and giant strength. The subtle fragrance of her hands pervades His senses; in his veins he feels the flow Of her warm breath, which entered into them That moment he had caught her as she fell; Her words of love sweep like a surging tide Across the quiet of his self-control. When she was there, his love for her had kept His passion from uprising, though against His pleading heart, so long her pleading seemed. Now she is gone, all calm and thought are lost In the impassioned wish for her, the thirst To drink the sweetness of her deep, rich soul, Without a thought of Torm, or all the world. Sanpeur's well-rounded nature is triune, And flesh and sense as much a part of him As his clear brain and spirit consecrate. Passion for once asserts itself; he starts, And towards the castle strides with rapid steps; "She is my own, Fate sent her here to me; I cannot war against it any more; I will go in and fold her to myself."
He clasps his empty arms upon his breast, In the abandonment of wild desire, And feels, beneath the pressure of his hands, The sacred Order of the Holy Ghost. "Good Lord, deliver me from sin," he cries, And bows his knightly head in silent prayer.
No earnest soul can ask and not receive: Before the warden's deep-toned voice calls out Another watch, Sanpeur has overcome.
He passed his night beneath the silent stars, Below the resting-room of Gwendolaine, Who lay within his castle, loving him, While he kept watch, to guard her from himself.
Just ere the morning light, there was a cry From his most faithful seneschal to rouse The vassals to defend the brave Sanpeur, Loved loyally; and from the battlements He saw Sir Torm, waging a savage fight To win an entrance through his castle gate. With hurried steps he reached the gate, and with The cry,--drowned by the din of clashing arms,-- "Withhold! it is a friend," he threw himself Before Sir Torm, and took the mortal wound That had been aimed by his own seneschal.
"Let fighting cease; hurt not Sir Torm!" he cried, And fell into the arms of grim old Ule, Who pierced his own soul when he wounded him.
A sudden sound of wailing rent the court; The dames flocked from the castle in dismay, And with them came the Lady Gwendolaine, A pace or two, and then stood motionless; Her limbs, that brought her quickly to confront The evil she had wrought, grew powerless; Her wide, tense gaze was as of one who walks In sleep unseeing; her dishevelled hair Veiled the