I
Indeed, to Jacqueline, even more so than to her lover, this last half-hour appeared more unreal than a dream. For a long time after Gilles had gone she remained sitting on the pile of cushions at the entrance of the arbour, gazing, gazing far away into the translucent sky, struggling with that life-problem which to the ingenuous hath so oft remained unsolved: If God gave me that happiness, why did He take it away again so soon?
Life appeared before her now as one long vista of uninterrupted dreariness. With her heart dead within her, she would in truth become the pawn in political games which her guardian had always desired that she should be. Well! no doubt it was all for the best. Awhile ago, ere she had met Messire, ere he had taught her to read in the great Book of Love, she had been headstrong and rebellious. A loveless marriage of convention, a mere political alliance would have revolted her and mayhap caused grave complications in her troubled country's affairs. Now, nothing mattered. Nothing would ever matter again. Since happiness was for ever denied her, she was far more ready to sacrifice her personal feelings to her country's needs than she had been before.
Her joy in life would for the future be made up of sacrifice, and if she could do her beloved and sorely-stricken country a permanent benefit thereby, well! she would feel once more that she had not lived her life in vain.
At this stage she was not actively unhappy. Emotion had torn at her heartstrings and left her bruised and sore, but her happiness had been too brief to cause bitter regret. She was chiefly conscious of an immense feeling of pity for her lover, whose heartache must indeed be as great as her own. But, for herself, there was nothing that she regretted, nothing that she would have wished to be otherwise. All her memories of him were happy ones—except that moment of the midnight quarrel in the Palace, when for a brief while she had wilfully misjudged him. Even the final parting from him, though it broke her heart, had been wholly free from bitterness. She was so sure of his love that she could almost bear patiently to see him go away, knowing that she could always treasure his love in her heart as something pure and almost holy.
All through life that love would encompass her, would keep her from evil thoughts and evil intent, whilst nothing on earth could rob her of the sweets of memory. She loved him and he had wanted her, even long before she knew him; he had come to Cambray in disguise, under a mask, and had wooed her in his own romantic fashion, with song and laughter and joy of living, so different to the amorous sighs and languorous looks wherewith other swains had striven to win her regard. She loved the mystery wherewith he had surrounded his person, smiled at the thought how he had led Monseigneur her guardian by the nose, and had tried vainly to hoodwink even her—her, Jacqueline, who had loved him already that night when he had flung Pierre over the wall and run to her window, singing: 'Mignonne, venez voir si la rose——'
And he had thought to hoodwink her after that! thought to throw dust in her eyes by playing a dual rôle, now masquerading as the Prince de Froidmont, now as the equerry—he, the chosen of her heart, the man whose every action, every word was fine and noble and dear.... How foolish of him to imagine that she could be deceived. Why, there was that scar upon his hand—a scar the sight of which had loosened a perfect floodgate of memories—a scar which she herself had helped to tend and bind three years ago, in the monastery of Gembloux. She could even remember the leech saying at the time: 'The rascal will be marked for life, I warrant. I've never seen such a strange wound before—the exact shape of a cross it is, like the mark on an ass's back.'
How well she remembered that night! Her own anxiety for the wounded man—a poor soldier, evidently, for he was miserably clad; his clothes were old and had been frequently darned and his pockets only contained a few sols. He had apparently fought with the French on that awful day, and had been discovered by herself, lying unconscious near the monastery wall, up on the hill, more than a league away from the field of battle. She remembered insisting that the leech should tend him, and afterwards that he should be taken back to the spot where the fighting had taken place, in case some friend or comrade be searching for him. After that, the death of her dear brother and the change in her fortunes had chased all other memories away, until that awful night in the Palace, when de Landas had behaved like a coward and she like a vixen, and the Prince de Froidmont had threaded the masks of his vanquished enemies upon his sword and thrown them at her feet. She had seen the scar then upon his hand, and the sight had troubled her, because of the mystery which it evoked. Then came the next day, when she sat in the window embrasure in wait for the Prince's equerry. At once his face had seemed so strangely familiar to her—and then there was the scar!
Jacqueline remembered how deeply she pondered over the puzzle then. The Prince de Froidmont and his equerry were one and the same person; that was evident, of course. And both these personalities were also merged in that of the poor soldier whom she had helped to tend in the monastery of Gembloux. But, unlike most women, she had never tried to pry into his secrets. Somehow the mystery—if mystery there was—seemed to harmonize with his whole personality. She loved him as he was—rough at times, at others infinitely gentle; and oh! the strength of his love and its ardour when he held her in his arms! She would be quite satisfied if the mystery remained for ever unsolved. It was a part of him, not by any means the least amongst his many attractions in her sight.
Now he had gone, never to return, leaving her alone with only memory for company—memory and a huge longing to rest once more in the safe fold of his protecting arms.
'Come back to me, Messire!' she called out to him in her heart. 'Take no heed of what I said when in my blind folly I vowed that it could never be. It shall and must be if you'll only come back to me—just once—only once—and I should be content. God never meant that you and I should part before we had each drained the cup of Love to the end. The world is ours, our Love shall conquer it. Not the world of riches and of pomp; not even the world of glory. Just a little kingdom of our own, wherein no one shall dwell but you and I—a little kingdom bound for me by the span of your arms, my throne your heart, my crown your kiss.'