“Why have I done this thing? Because of love of you!” she answers back. “Why have you killed that man there?” For she does not yet understand.
But her father says: “Come hither, Hermoine, I will explain.”
To this she says: “No, no!” Alva is coming toward her and she cries to him: “Stand where you are! Don’t dare to touch me till you tell me why you have forgotten your promise to me!”
Then he of Alva, with voice that seems to her harsh as the judgment trumpet of our Lord will seem to those who have no hope in eternity, answers: “This man is not the man you thought you loved. This is not Guido Amati. He was killed at the Battle on the Ice, slain by this English rover, this accursed pirate, this scum of the sea, this base-born clown, who aped a Spanish noble to win your trust and love.”
“Base-born clown!” breaks out the Englishman. “That’s a lie, when coupled with the name of Chester. My lord of Alva, you speak to belted English knight. My accolade was given by the Queen’s own hand. I have in me the blood of the Stanhopes, who fought with William the Conqueror; my cousin is a Stanley and wears Earl’s coronet. Nobility I have enough for you and yours. Do you think I would have sullied her I love by luring her to wed ignoble blood? Look—on my breast I bear the golden spurs of knighthood!”
At this the girl, who has cowered under the words that brand the man she loves as one of the ignoble, seizing from Chester’s breast the trinkets that show he is of her rank and class, holds them up before my lord of Alva, and cries out in almost happy voice: “He’s noble! Father, do you hear, HE’S NOBLE! Now you can’t refuse, he’s noble, though he is—” she pauses here and falters to Guy, for now she somewhat understands, “Are you the—‘The First of the English?’ ”
“Yes!”
The answer comes haughtily and proudly, and with it there is a sudden light in her brain, and she gasps: “Ah, now I know—! This—this Oliver his friend—the day he rescued me, the day they said the English rover was in Antwerp.” Then she whispers, almost exultation [[258]]in her voice: “Twice, my love, that day I saved you; to-day I will save you again!”
But this dies away into one awful wailing cry, as he of Alva, in a voice as unyielding as the Rock of Ages, says harshly: “Gomez, bring in the executioner!”
“The executioner! Father, you don’t understand. This is the man I love.”