“My daughter,” and now, unable to command his grief, sobs shake his words, and poor Claire, clinging wildly to her mistress, as if by her loving arms she could keep her in life, utters the most piercing cries.
“My sister,” and Blanche turns to her, “for such you are in love, disturb not my last hour with your grief, but rather rejoice with me that I am leaving a world in which I have suffered so much. I wonder I have been allowed to live so long. But, my father,” addressing the priest, “listen to me before I die: I am innocent of the crime imputed to me. I was condemned unheard. But there is a tribunal above, before the living God, to absolve me. There I summon my husband, the King of Castile, to appear. We shall meet shortly. By the sword he has lived; and by the sword he shall die. It has been revealed to me.”
“My daughter,” replies the priest, taking her hand in his, “such invocations are wicked. Leave vengeance to God.”
Blanche bows her head in obedience. But the prophecy is uttered, and the dark spirits which keep watch over human life have heard and noted it.
Then calling for paper, which Claire, gathering herself up from the floor, gave her with trembling hands, hanging over her the while as if each breath she drew was precious beyond life, Blanche wrote some words addressed to Don Pedro, and bound the paper with a black ribbon from her neck.
“I pray you, my father, to hold what is here written as sacred. Deliver it in person to the king. Tell him you saw me die.”
So calm is Blanche and her voice so clear, as she fixes her large eyes steadfastly on the priest, as if looking beyond him into another world, that neither he nor Claire dare trouble her with words.
Then she confesses, kneeling on the stones, and at the conclusion, taking the priest’s hand in hers, she meekly kisses it, and begs to be interred at Xeres.
“For else,” she says, “they may dispute the possession of my body in death as they have done in life, and the king’s mistress, Maria de Padilla, might do some dishonour to it, which is not meet, seeing that I am of royal blood, and the rightful Queen of Castile.”
And even in the agony of her grief Claire wondered to hear Blanche speak with such dignity and judgment, for, up to that time since they had left Toledo, her senses had seemed dulled, and she had said nothing of all that was in her mind.