"It was nothing, Madonna, I entreat you," he said with marked impatience, "a blow from a halberd caught me on the arm. I scarcely feel it now."
"Let me see," she commanded.
Then as he made no movement to obey, she--half crying with anxiety, and half-laughing with excitement--ran swiftly round him, and in an instant she had hold, of his left hand, and with gentle pressure compelled him to yield it to her. He tried to struggle, but the pain in his arm rendered it somewhat helpless.
"I insist!" she said gently, and clung to his hand supporting the fore-arm as she did so.
"Your sleeve is covered with blood!" she exclaimed.
"It is nothing!" he persisted obstinately.
But for the moment she was the stronger of the two. Short of doing her violence he could not prevent her from holding his hand with one of hers, and with the other undoing the buttons at his wrist; then with utmost gentleness she detached the shirt which was sticking to a deep, gaping wound, that stretched from the wrist right up to the elbow.
"Oh! but this is terrible!" she cried. "No blow from a halberd could have inflicted such a wound! ... Oh! why does not that woman hurry?" she added, whilst tears of vexation and impatience rose to her eyes. There was nothing to hand wherewith she could staunch the wound, even momentarily--every second was precious!...
"I have a knowledge of such matters," she said gently. "At the convent we tended on many wounded soldiers, when they came to us hurt from the wars. This is no fresh wound, Messire," she added slowly, "but an old and very severe one, dealt not so very long ago ... by a dagger probably, which tore the flesh and muscle right deeply to the bone ... it had not healed completely ... the blow from the halberd caused it to reopen ... and..."
But the next words remained frozen on her lips: even whilst she spoke she had gradually felt a deathlike feeling--like an icy hand gripping her heart and tearing at its strings. An awful dizziness seized her. She looked up--still holding Mark's hand--and gazed straight into his face. He too was as pale as the dead ashes in the grate--his whole face had become wax-like in its rigidity, only his eyes remained alive and glowing, fixed into her own now with a look which held a world of emotion in its depths: passionate tenderness and mute appeal, an avowal and a yearning and with it all an infinity of despair.