And then came a gentle rush of intense expectation, as Sybil lifted the crown royal from her head, and prepared to descend the steps of the throne.
Her choice was to be made now.
Down the damask carpeting of the nave she came, very, very slowly: carrying the crown in both hands, the holy Patriarch following and swinging the holy censer behind her. Her eyes were cast down. It was evident that she knew perfectly well where he stood who was to wear that crown.
Slowly, slowly, all along the nave. Past one eligible noble after another, face after face gathering blankness as she went. At last she turned, ever so little, to the right.
I could bear no more. I covered my face with my mantle. Let who would gaze on me—let who would sneer! She was coming—no doubt any longer now—straight towards Count Raymond of Tripoli.
And never—with the faint flush in her cheeks, and the sweet, downcast eyes—had I seen her look so beautiful. And all at once, athwart my anger, my indignation, my sense of bitter wrong, came one fervent gush of that old, deep love, which had been mine for Sybil: and I felt as though I could have laid down my life that hour to save, not Guy, but her, from the dreadful consequences of her own folly,—from that man who had crushed Guy's heart as he might have crushed a moth.
Then came a dead hush, in which a butterfly's wing might almost have been heard to beat. Then, a low murmur, half assent, half dissent. Then, suddenly bursting forth, a cheer that went pealing to the roof, and died away in reverberations along the triforium. The choice was made.
And then—I had not dared to look up—I heard Sybil's voice. She was close, close beside me.
"Sir Guy de Lusignan," she said, "I choose thee as my lord, and as Lord of the land of Jerusalem; for—" and a slight quiver came into the triumphant, ringing voice—"whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!"
Then I looked up, and saw on my Guy's head the crown of the world, and in Sybil's dear eyes the tender, passionate love-light which she had locked out of them for months for love's own sake, and I knew her at last for the queen of women that she is.