‘Girl—your choice!’ said the Bishop, peremptorily. ‘Wedlock on the spot to this gentleman, or to Sir Boëmond a week hence.’
Esclairmonde was very white.
‘My will shall not consent to a present breach of vow to save a future one,’ she said, in a scarce audible voice.
A sudden thought darted into Malcolm’s mind. With colour flooding his face to his very temples, he stepped nearer to her, and said, in a tremulous under-tone, ‘Lady, trust me.’
The Bishop withheld Jaqueline almost by force, so soon as he saw that the pair were whispering together, and that there was something of relaxation in Esclairmonde’s face as she looked up at him in silent interrogation.
He spoke low, but solemnly and imploringly. ‘Trust me with your plight, lady, and I will restore it when you are free.’
Hardly able to speak, she however murmured, ‘You will indeed do this?’
‘So help me Heaven!’ he said, and his eyes grew large and bright; he held his head with the majesty of his race.
‘Heaven has sent you,’ said Esclairmonde, with a long sigh, and holding out her hand to him, as though therewith she conferred a high-souled woman’s full trust.
And Malcolm took it with a strange pang of pain and exultation at the heart. The trust was won, but the hope of earthly joy was gone for ever.