“Dost think my brother loves her too, he is so changed? And to which of us will she give her heart?”
Dame Roxana offered many a taper in the little mountain chapel at Lespes, and hoped that this painfully made pilgrimage might incline Heaven’s mercy towards them, and ward off a great disaster from her home.
Rolanda had been in a state of indescribable agitation ever since the time that Andrei and Mirea had, each unknown to the other, confessed their love to her. In vain the poor child questioned her heart; she loved them both too well—far too well—to make either wretched; nor could she separate the one from the other in her heart, any more than she could with her eyes. She kept silence towards Dame Roxana, for she could not bear to give her pain; but day by day she saw how the brothers no longer cherished each other, and even how sharp words sometimes passed between them, and that had never chanced in all their lives before.
At last Dame Roxana called the three to her side and spoke.
“I have watched the bitter struggle of your hearts too long. One of you must needs make a hard sacrifice, that the other may be happy.”
“Yes,” answered Mirea gloomily, “one of us must quit this world.”
“For God’s sake!” cried Rolanda, “you would not fight over me?”
“Nay,” said Andrei, with a sad smile, “that were impossible. But one can go hence alone.”
Then said Dame Roxana with uplifted hands, “O godless children! have I, then, borne you and brought you up so feeble that neither of you has the strength to bear his first sorrow? Rolanda, till to-morrow shalt thou have time for thought; by to-morrow we shall all have won strength and courage.”