"I hope it is so," rejoined Eleanor; "for methinks I see difficulties before you--thorns in your path; which I fear may wound those tender feet more than you dream of. You love and are beloved, that is clear, and that were simple enough to deal with, as most loves in this world go, for very often the wild god's dart gives but a scratch as it passes, and wounds not one heart deeply in a thousand. But for those who love as you two seem to do, there is a world of anxieties and cares upon the way. In our state of life, Lucy, we cannot, like the happy country maid, give our hand at once where our heart is given, and seldom--seldom through ages, is it the lot of woman to find so happy a fate as mine, where the first lot I drew was the chief prize of the whole world--he whom alone my heart could ever love, and he who was destined to return it well.--He loves you, Lucy, I think,--this young captive lord?"
"I am sure of it, lady," replied Lucy, earnestly.
"Indeed!" said the Princess. "Then doubtless you have spoken on this theme--are plighted and promised to each other!"
Lucy turned somewhat pale, but it was with indecision, and doubt, and the Princess, marking her changing colour, added--"Nay, let me not force your confidence from you. I would fain help you, if I could; but trust, like bounty, must be free, Lucy, not extorted; and though your secret were as safe with me as in your own breast, yet let not the bird take wing if you fear its flight."
Her fair companion, turning round, sunk somewhat farther at the Princess's feet, and hid her eyes upon her knee, saying--"My confidence shall be free!--We are plighted by every promise that can bind heart to heart but the last one at the altar; and now that I have told you so much, I will tell you all," she continued,--"even now, I fear he is waiting for my coming in the cloisters down below."
"Nay!" exclaimed Eleanor, with a look of some surprise and disapprobation.
Lucy read her thoughts by the tone in which she spoke, and raising her head somewhat proudly, she replied--"You mistake me, I fear, dear lady; and do not know the purpose for which I go."
"To fly with him, perhaps," said Eleanor.
"Oh no!" answered Lucy, "while my father lives I will never wed man without his blessing. No, lady--no! Neither must you think--although I hold there might be circumstances in which, but for the sake of cheering and soothing him I love in captivity and sorrow, I might well grant him a poor hour of my company alone--neither must you think, I say, that I go to him now either to please my ear with hearing his dear voice, or to comfort him with aught I can say in return. I know I may trust you, lady--I know I may tell you why I go, and that you will neither repeat it, nor ask me any farther question. I have a message to him from one he loves and sorrows for. I have news from those he has wept as dead; and though there be no treason in it, lady," she added, with a smile, "I dare not give it to any other lips to deliver than my own."
Eleanor bent down her head and kissed her brow--"Go--go, sweet Lucy," she said, "I give you leave. Ay, and even when your message is given, if you do linger out the hour, or, perhaps, even see him again by another clear moon like that, I will forgive and trust you both. The man that could sully such a thing as thou art, by prompting one wish--one act--one thought for which the pure heart would burn with grief hereafter, were somewhat worse than a fiend; and methinks," she added, laughing, "your lover does not look like one."