“But you have told me nothing, dear child. How can I answer you?” The nun was perplexed.
“True. I will tell you. Sister Paul—I am five-and-twenty years old, I am a grown woman and this is no mere girl’s love story. Seven years ago—I was only eighteen then—I was with my father as I have been ever since. My mother had not been dead long then—perhaps that is the reason why I seemed to be everything to my father. But they had not been happy together, and I had loved her best. We were travelling—no matter where—and then I met the man I have loved. He was not of our country—that is, of my father’s. He was of the same people as my mother. Well—I loved him. How dearly you must guess, and try to understand. I could not tell you that. No one could. It began gradually, for he was often with us in those days. My father liked him for his wit, his learning, though he was young; for his strength and manliness—for a hundred reasons which were nothing to me. I would have loved him had he been a cripple, poor, ignorant, despised, instead of being what he was—the grandest, noblest man God ever made. For I did not love him for his face, nor for his courtly ways, nor for such gifts as other men might have, but for himself and for his heart—do you understand?”
“For his goodness,” said Sister Paul, nodding in approval. “I understand.”
“No,” Beatrice answered, half impatiently. “Not for his goodness either. Many men are good, and so was he—he must have been, of course. No matter. I loved him. That is enough. He loved me, too. And one day we were alone, in the broad spring sun, upon a terrace. There were lemon trees there—I can see the place. Then we told each other that we loved—but neither of us could find the words—they must be somewhere, those strong beautiful words that could tell how we loved. We told each other—”
“Without your father’s consent?” asked the nun almost severely.
Beatrice’s eyes flashed. “Is a woman’s heart a dog that must follow at heel?” she asked fiercely. “We loved. That was enough. My father had the power, but not the heart, to come between. We told him, then, for we were not cowards. We told him boldly that it must be. He was a thoughtful man, who spoke little. He said that we must part at once, before we loved each other better—and that we should soon forget. We looked at each other, the man I loved and I. We knew that we should love better yet, parted or together, though we could not tell how that could be. But we knew also that such love as there was between us was enough. My father gave no reasons, but I knew that he hated the name of my mother’s nation. Of course we met again. I remember that I could cry in those days. My father had not learned to part us then. Perhaps he was not quite sure himself, at all events the parting did not come so soon. We told him that we would wait, for ever if it must be. He may have been touched, though little touched him at the best. Then, one day, suddenly and without warning, he took me away to another city. And what of him? I asked. He told me that there was an evil fever in the city and that it had seized him—the man I loved. ‘He is free to follow us if he pleases,’ said my father. But he never came. Then followed a journey, and another, and another, until I knew that my father was travelling to avoid him. When I saw that I grew silent, and never spoke his name again. Farther and farther, longer and longer, to the ends of the earth. We saw many people, many asked for my hand. Sometimes I heard of him, from men who had seen him lately. I waited patiently, for I knew that he was on our track, and sometimes I felt that he was near.”
Beatrice paused.
“It is a strange story,” said Sister Paul, who had rarely heard a tale of love.
“The strange thing is this,” Beatrice answered. “That woman—what is her name? Unorna? She loves him, and she knows where he is.”
“Unorna?” repeated the nun in bewilderment.