She was sitting on a low seat before him, and she leaned forward, the black hood falling back, framing her face and making it look white.
"None else dare go," she said; "none else dare go, Gerald. Such places are so hideous and so noisome, and yet there are those who are born and die there, bound hand and foot when they are born, that they may be bound hand and foot to die!" She rose as if she did not know she moved, and stood up before him, her hand upon her breast.
"'Tis such as I should go," she said, "I who am happy and beloved—after all—after all! 'Tis such as I who should go, and carry love and pity—love and pity!" And she seemed Love's self and Pity's self, and stood transfigured.
"You are a saint," he cried; "and yet I am afraid. Ah! how could any harm you?"
"I am so great and strong," she said, in a still voice, "none could harm me if they would. I am not as other women. And I do not know fear. See!" and she held out her arm. "I am a Wildairs—built of iron and steel. If in a struggle I held aught in my hand and struck at a man—" her arm fell at her side suddenly as if some horrid thought had swept across her soul, like a blighting blast. She turned white and sank upon her low seat, covering her face with her hands. Then she looked up with awed eyes. "If one who was so strong," she said, "should strike at a man in anger, he might strike him dead—unknowing—dead!"
"'Tis not a thing to think of," said his Grace, and shuddered a little.
"But he would think of it," she said, "all his life through and bear it on his soul." And she shuddered, too, and in her eyes was the old look which sometimes haunted them. Surely, he thought, Nature had never before made a woman's eyes so to answer to her lover's and her lord's. They were so warm and full of all a man's soul most craved for. He had seen them flash fire like Juno's, he had seen tears well up into them as if she had been a tender girl, he had seen them laugh like a child's, he had seen them brood over him as a young dove's might brood over her mate, but this look was unlike any other, and was as if she thought on some dark thing in another world—so far away that her mind's vision could scarce reach it, and yet could not refrain from turning towards its shadow.
But this was but a cloud which his love-words and nearness could dispel. This she herself told him on a time when he spoke to her of it.
"When you see it," she said, "come and tell me that you love me, and that there is naught can come between our souls. As you said the day you showed me the dear rose, 'Naught can come between'—and love is more than all."
"But that you know," he answered.