Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

Yet even as he leant there, absorbed in contemplation, his mind was suddenly pierced with a most evil arrow of a thought. What if Raymonde had taken him out of pity, as a woman sometimes will . . . or worse, out of a sense of gratitude?

The idea assailed him so unexpectedly, and so much from without his own consciousness, that La Vireville dropped the strand of tamarisk which he was idly fingering, and started up, straightening himself as under an actual physical blow. Good God, it was impossible! "No," said a tiny derisive voice in his heart, "far from it! It is very possible. Even as to you yourself she is but a makeshift—you told her so with your own lips—so to her you are only a man for whom she is sorry, and to whom she is under an obligation. So much the better for you! And what else did you expect?"

And part of this two-sided onslaught La Vireville instantly and furiously repelled. No, no, it was a lie—she was not a makeshift! If he had spilt the best years of his life before another, a barren altar, he knew better now. He loved Raymonde deeply and sincerely, with a better love than he had given to that other. But Raymonde's own motive in accepting him—how should he answer for that? Now that it had once occurred to him, he saw that it was only too likely—she had taken him out of pity.

He leant upon the wall again and covered his eyes with his hand. The scene of his brief wooing, scarce concluded, passed once more before him. Again he saw her studying the gorse blossom, weighing what she should do. Yes, she had taken and returned his kisses—but had he not read compassion in her very eyes at her first sight of him, with that hateful empty sleeve? Yes, she had said that she was proud to bear his name—but that might well be an act of atonement for the past. She had spoken of helping him, of being by his side. Well, there was such a thing—curse it!—as gratitude; and she owed him her freedom, if not her life. But for him she had not stood on Sark to-day. That he had a claim on her had never, till this moment, come into his thoughts. Now his past knight-errantry stared at him like a crime. Her accepted lover . . . from pity and a sense of obligation! Could it really be so? Alas! who was to answer that it was not?

Fortuné uncovered his eyes, and, catching at a sprig of tamarisk, tore at it moodily with his teeth. The lark's song had ceased; even the sunlight seemed dimmed and unreal, as in time of eclipse. Yes, now that the exhilaration was over, he saw that he had been a fool. He glanced at his sleeve, thought of his lean purse, his blackened home. Of course she had accepted him because she was sorry for him, and because she thought that she owed him a debt and must pay it somehow! How could he have come to her expecting anything else, for what had he in the world—except his love—to lay at her feet?

And perhaps, after all, that love was not so strong nor so worthy as he had thought. Fortuné was very little used to introspection, and the thought shook him how easy it was, evidently, to delude oneself. Ought he not, at any rate, to put an end to the situation before it went farther, and, as a man of honour, offer to release Raymonde from the promise which a moment of compassion had wrung from her? . . . The idea was agony, but the wound to his pride was agony too. . . .

And at that very moment Raymonde came along the pebbled path that led from the door of the farmhouse. Her cloak was over her arm, a little basket in her hand; she turned her head and smiled at the old woman and the two children who watched her from the low doorway. And at the sight of her, at the movement of her head, her smile, the thought of releasing her left him as swiftly as it had come to him. He could not do it; he wanted her too much. If she had taken him out of pity or gratitude, so be it!—on whatever terms, so only she were his!

Something of the sudden conflict that had rent him must have been visible in his air, for as he held the gate open for her, and she had thanked him by a smile, she said quickly:

"Qu'avez-vous, mon ami? Was the sun too hot here?"

"I have been thinking over my good fortune," said her lover gravely. "Give me your cloak."