“You retain, then, your ancient love of your national melodies,” said Adrian.
“Ay, I have not yet survived all my youth,” answered Montreal, with a slight sigh. “But somehow or other, the strains that once pleased my fancy now go too directly to my heart. So, though I still welcome jongleur and minstrel, I bid them sing their newest conceits. I cannot wish ever again to hear the poetry I heard when I was young!”
“Pardon me,” said Adrian, with great interest, “but fain would I have dared, though a secret apprehension prevented me hitherto,—fain would I have dared to question you of that lovely lady, with whom, seven years ago, we gazed at moonlight upon the odorous orange-groves and rosy waters of Terracina.”
Montreal turned away his face; he laid his hand on Adrian’s arm, and murmured, in a deep and hoarse tone, “I am alone now!”
Adrian pressed his hand in silence. He felt no light shock at thus learning the death of one so gentle, so lovely, and so ill-fated.
“The vows of my knighthood,” continued Montreal, “which precluded Adeline the rights of wedlock—the shame of her house—the angry grief of her mother—the wild vicissitudes of my life, so exposed to peril—the loss of her son—all preyed silently on her frame. She did not die (die is too harsh a word!), but she drooped away, and glided into heaven. Even as on a summer’s morn some soft dream fleets across us, growing less and less distinct, until it fades, as it were, into light, and we awaken—so faded Adeline’s parting spirit, till the daylight of God broke upon it.”
Montreal paused a moment, and then resumed: “These thoughts make the boldest of us weak sometimes, and we Provencals are foolish in these matters!—God wot, she was very dear to me!”
The Knight bent down and crossed himself devoutly, his lips muttered a prayer. Strange as it may seem to our more enlightened age, so martial a garb did morality then wear, that this man, at whose word towns had blazed and torrents of blood had flowed, neither adjudged himself, nor was adjudged by the majority of his contemporaries, a criminal. His order, half monastic, half warlike, was emblematic of himself. He trampled upon man, yet humbled himself to God; nor had all his acquaintance with the refining scepticism of Italy shaken the sturdy and simple faith of the bold Provencal. So far from recognising any want of harmony between his calling and his creed, he held that man no true chevalier who was not as devout to the Cross as relentless with the sword.
“And you have no child save the one you lost?” asked Adrian, when he observed the wonted composure of Montreal once more returning.
“None!” said Montreal, as his brow again darkened. “No love-begotten heir of mine will succeed to the fortunes I trust yet to build. Never on earth shall I see upon the face of her child the likeness of Adeline! Yet, at Avignon, I saw a boy I would have claimed; for methought she must have looked her soul into his eyes, they were so like hers! Well, well! The Provence tree hath other branches; and some unborn nephew must be—what? The stars have not yet decided! But ambition is now the only thing in the world left me to love.”