And yet it seemed impossible for Lenora at this moment to disguise from that searching gaze all those terrible conflicts which had literally been tearing her heart asunder in the past few hours--nay, more! it seemed as if the very letter which lay inside the folds of her kerchief addressed to her father must be lying open before her husband's eyes and that he was reading it even now.
The feeling became akin to a sweet obsession, and gradually she allowed her senses to yield themselves to its soothing influence. After all had she not been sure that sooner or later God would make His will manifest to her? had she not prayed for guidance? had she not hoped all the morning that something would prevent her journey to Brussels? Content to leave everything in God's hands she had yet hoped that God would point the way to which her own heart was tending.
And now, circumstances had suddenly occurred which did impede the journey--the horse had cast a shoe, the provost at the gate had proved officious, the hour had slipped by and no horse was forthcoming.
Given the absolute simplicity of the girl's religious thoughts, her upbringing, the superstition which underlay all beliefs in the old tenets of the Church during this period of stress and struggle through which she was groping her way through darkness into light: given Lenora's pure nature and the proud humility which accepted unquestioningly all the commands of those whom she had been taught to reverence, was it to be wondered at that while she was quite ready to do her duty, she should nevertheless hope and think that she had at last received a distinct, supernatural sign that her journey to Brussels was not one of those decrees of God before which everything on earth must bow and every obstacle be removed?
But even then--in spite of her wishes and her hopes--she fought on to the last and refused to yield to the sweet, insistent call of peace and of sentiment. What she took to be a sign from God might easily be an insidious machination of the devil. There was a quaint look of gentle amusement in Mark's eyes, which was certainly disquieting, and it was just possible that it was he who had--wittingly or unwittingly--assumed the role of a guiding Providence in the matter.
Therefore she steeled her heart against those subtle whisperings which seemed to lure her on every side to give up the fight, to allow herself to drift on the soothing wave which even now was carrying her to a haven, where all was peace and quietude and where there was neither strife nor intrigue.
"Messire," she said abruptly and as repellently as she could, "I pray you enlighten mine ignorance. How many cowardly deeds of this sort stand to your discredit?"
He smiled quite unperturbed: "You think me an adept?" he asked quietly.
"You are not ashamed?" she retorted.
"Not in the least. What have I done?"