"Not at first. They came to the castle where I had been left all alone after they were married, and my father told me that I must call the Lady Goda my mother. She kissed me as if she were fond of me for his sake."
Gilbert started a little, and his teeth set together, while he clasped his hands over one knee and waited to hear more. Beatrix understood his look, and knew that she had unintentionally hurt him. She laid her hand softly upon his arm.
"Forgive me," she said. "I should not talk about it."
"No," he said harshly, "go on! I feel nothing; I am past feeling there.
They were kind to you at first, you said."
"Yes," she continued, looking at him sideways. "They were kind when they remembered to be, but they often forgot. And then, it was hard to treat her with respect when I came to know how she had got your inheritance for my father, and how she had let you leave England to wander about the world. And then, last year, it seemed to me all at once that I was a woman and could not bear it any longer, for I saw that she hated me. And when a son was born to them, my father turned against me and threatened that he would send me to a nunnery. So I fled, one day when my father had ridden to Stoke and the Lady Goda was sleeping in her chamber. A groom and my handmaid helped me and went with me, for my father would have hanged them if they had stayed behind; so I took refuge with the Empress Maud at Oxford, and soon there came a letter from the Queen of France to the Empress, asking that I might be sent to the French court if I would. And something of the reason for the Queen's wish I can guess. But not all."
She ceased, and for some moments Gilbert sat silent beside her, but not as if he had nothing to say. He seemed rather to be checking himself lest he should say too much.
"So you were at Vezelay," he said at last; "yet I sought your face everywhere, and I could not see you."
"How did you know?" asked Beatrix.
"The Queen had written to me," he answered; "so I came back from Rome."
"I understand," said the young girl, quietly.