The tone of his voice, the look in his eyes while he said this, made it impossible for her not to understand. She lowered her eyes for a moment, for his glance had brought a hot blush to her cheeks. There was a moment of tense silence in the little arbour—a silence broken only by the murmur of the breeze through the young twigs of the wild clematis and the call of a robin in the branches of the limes. Jacqueline was the first to rouse herself from this strange and sweet oppression. She gave a quick little sigh and, unable to speak, she was turning to go away, flying as if by instinct from some insidious danger which seemed to lurk for her in the wild, tremulous beating of her heart.
'Jacqueline!'
She had not thought that her name could sound so sweet as it did just then, when it came to her in a fervent, passionate appeal from the depths of the fragrant arbour, where awhile ago she and her servants had laid Messire down to rest. She did not turn her head to look on him now, but nevertheless paused on the threshold, for her heart was beating so fast that she felt almost choked, and her knees shook so that she was forced to cling with one hand to the curtain of young twigs which hung at the entrance of the arbour.
The next moment he was by her side. She felt that he was near her, even though she still kept her head resolutely turned away. He put one knee to the ground and, stooping, kissed the hem of her gown. And Jacqueline—a mere child where knowledge of the great passion is concerned—felt that something very great and very mysterious, as well as very beautiful, had suddenly been revealed to her by this simple act of homage performed by this one man. She realized all of a sudden why those few weeks ago, when the mysterious singer with the mellow voice had sung beneath her window, the whole world had seemed to her full of beauty and of joy, why during these past long and weary days while Messire lay sick and she could not see him, that self-same world became unspeakably drab and ugly. She knew now that, with his song, the singer had opened the portals of her heart, and that, unknown to herself, she had let Love creep in there and make himself a nest, from whence he had alternately tortured her or made her exquisitely happy. Tears which seared and soothed rose to her eyes; a stupendous longing for something which she could not quite grasp, filled her entire soul. And with it all, an infinite sadness made her heart ache till she could have called out with the pain of it—a sense of the unattainable, of something perfect and wonderful, which by a hideous caprice of Fate must for ever remain out of her reach.
'It can never be, Messire!' was all that she said. The words came like a cry, straight from her heart—a child's heart, that has not yet learned to dissemble. And that cry spoke more certainly and more tangibly than any avowal could have done. In a moment, Gilles was on his feet, his arms were round her shoulders and his face was buried in her fragrant hair. And she, unresisting, yielded herself to him, savoured the sweetness of his caresses, the touch of his lips on her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth. Her ardent nature, long held in fetters by convention, responded with all its richness to the insistent call of the man's passionate love.
'You love me, Jacqueline?' he asked, and looked down into the depths of those exquisite blue eyes which had captured his soul long ago and made him their slave until this hour, when they in their turn yielded entirely to him.
'Verily,' she replied quaintly, and looked shyly into his glowing face; 'I do believe, in truth, Messire, that I do.'
Let those who can, blame Gilles de Crohin for losing his head after that, and for promptly forgetting everything that he ought to have remembered, save the rapture of holding her to his breast. Of a truth, duty, honour, promises, the Duc d'Anjou and Madame la Reyne, were as far from his ken just now as is a crawling worm from the starry firmament above. He was going away to-day—out, out into a great world, into the unknown, where life could be made anew, where there would be neither sorrow nor tears, if he could carry this exquisite woman thither in his arms.
'I cannot let you go, ma donna,' he murmured as he held her closer and ever closer, and covered her lips, her neck, her throat with kisses. 'No power on earth can take you from me now that I have you, that I hold you, my beautiful, exquisite flower. You love me, Jacqueline?' he asked her for the tenth time, and for the tenth time she murmured in response: 'I love you!'
Time had ceased to be. The world no longer existed for these two happy beings who had found one another. There was only Love for them—Love, pure and holy, and Passion, that makes the world go round. There was spring in the air, and the scent of awakening life around them, the fragrance of budding blossom, the call of birds, the hum of bees—Nature, exquisite, wonderful in her perfect selfishness, and in her oblivion of all save her own immutable Self.