“While this strife lasts, it becomes my widowhood and kindred position with the earl to retire to the convent my mother founded. To-morrow I depart.”
“Alas!” said Hastings, “thou speakest of the strife as if but a single field. But Warwick returns not to these shores, nor bows himself to league with Lancaster, for a chance hazardous and desperate, as Edward too rashly deems it. It is in vain to deny that the earl is prepared for a grave and lengthened war, and much I doubt whether Edward can resist his power; for the idolatry of the very land will swell the ranks of so dread a rebel. What if he succeed; what if we be driven into exile, as Henry’s friends before us; what if the king-maker be the king-dethroner? Then, Katherine, then once more thou wilt be at the best of thy hostile kindred, and once more, dowered as thou art, and thy womanhood still in its richest bloom, thy hand will be lost to Hastings.”
“Nay, if that be all thy fear, take with thee this pledge,—that Warwick’s treason to the House for which my father fell dissolves his power over one driven to disown him as a brother,—knowing Earl Salisbury, had he foreseen such disgrace, had disowned him as a son. And if there be defeat and flight and exile, wherever thou wanderest, Hastings, shall Katherine be found beside thee. Fare thee well, and Our Lady shield thee! may thy lance be victorious against all foes,—save one. Thou wilt forbear my—that is, the earl!” And Katherine, softened at that thought, sobbed aloud.
“And come triumph or defeat, I have thy pledge?” said Hastings, soothing her.
“See,” said Katherine, taking the broken ring from the casket; “now, for the first time since I bore the name of Bonville, I lay this relic on my heart; art thou answered?”
CHAPTER VI. HASTINGS LEARNS WHAT HAS BEFALLEN SIBYLL, REPAIRS TO THE KING, AND ENCOUNTERS AN OLD RIVAL.
“It is destiny,” said Hastings to himself, when early the next morning he was on his road to the farm—“it is destiny,—and who can resist his fate?”
“It is destiny!”—phrase of the weak human heart! “It is destiny!” dark apology for every error! The strong and the virtuous admit no destiny! On earth guides conscience, in heaven watches God. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one, to dethrone the other!
Hastings spared not his good steed. With great difficulty had he snatched a brief respite from imperious business, to accomplish the last poor duty now left to him to fulfil,—to confront the maid whose heart he had seduced in vain, and say at length, honestly and firmly, “I cannot wed thee. Forget me, and farewell.”