"Hush!" she murmured quickly, for with a quick impulse he had seized her hand and was pressing it to his lips. "My father can see us."
"What matter if he do," retorted don Ramon. "He has taken you from me, but he cannot kill my love ... our love, Lenora," he added with passionate ardour--an ardour in which he himself believed for the moment, since he loved Lenora and she was so exquisite, in her stateliness, her white gown and that casque of golden hair upon her head.
"You must not say that, Ramon," she said with earnestness that was far more real than his, "you must try and help me ... and not make my sacrifice altogether unbearable. It has been terrible," she added, and a curious, haunted look came into her eyes.
"It has been the most damnable thing that has ever been done on this earth, Lenora. When I arrived in this accursed city last night and quartered myself and some of my men in the house of the High-Bailiff, I would gladly have put the whole accursed family to the sword. There is no limit to my hatred of them--and of all those who stand between me and your love. I have hated your father, Lenora, ever since he parted us.... I have hated Alva! God help me! I have hated even the King!"
Ramon spoke in a low, hoarse murmur, inaudible to every one save to the shell-like ear for which it was intended. With irresistible force he had drawn Lenora's arm through his own, and had led her--much against her will--into one of the deep window embrasures, where heavy curtains of Utrecht velvet masked them both from view. He pressed her to sit on one of the low window seats, and through the soft-toned stained glass the dim light of the moon came peeping in and threw ghostlike glimmers upon the tendrils of her hair, even whilst the ruddy lights of the candles played upon her face and her white gown. For the first time to-night the young man realised all that he had lost and how infinitely desirable was the woman whom he had so airily given up without a fight. He cursed himself for his cowardice, even though he knew that he never would have the courage to dare defiance for her sake.
"Lenora," he said, with passionate intensity, "ever since your father and the Duke of Alva made me understand that they were taking you away from me, I have been wondering if it was humanly possible for any man who has known you as I have done, who has loved you as I love you still, to give you up to another."
"It has to be, Ramon," she said gently. "Oh! you must not think that I have not thought and fought--thought of what was my duty--fought for my happiness. Now," she added with a little sigh of weariness, "I cannot fight any more. My father, the Duke of Alva, the King himself in a personal letter to me, have told me where my duty lies. My confessor would withhold absolution from me if I refused to obey. My King and country and the Church have need of me it seems: what is my happiness worth if weighed in the balance of my country's service?"
"You are so unfitted for that sort of work," he murmured sullenly, "they will make of you something a little better than a spy in the house of the High-Bailiff of Ghent."
"That is the only thing which troubles me," she said. "I feel as if I were doing something mean and underhand. I shall marry a man whom I can never love, who belongs to a race that has always been inimical to Spain. My husband will hate all those whom I love. He will hate everything that I have always honoured and cherished--my King, my country, the glory and grandeur of Spain. He will rebel against her laws which I know to be beneficent even though they seem harsh and even cruel at times. A Netherlander can never have anything in common with a Spaniard...."
"Oh! they'd murder us if they could," the young man rejoined with a careless shrug of the shoulders, "but only in the dark streets or from behind a hedge."