Guerin bowed his head, yet lingered, saying, "And yet I would fain----"
"I am not well, sir," said the queen, turning paler and paler. "Send me my women, I beseech you!"
Guerin made a step towards the door, but suddenly turned, just in time to catch the beautiful princess in his arms, as, overcome by excitement and distress of mind, she fell back in one of those deathlike fainting fits which had seized her first at the Champeaux.
Her women were immediately called to her assistance; and the minister and the hermit retired, disappointed indeed in the purpose they had proposed to effect, but hardly less admiring the mingled dignity, gentleness, and firmness with which the queen had conducted herself in one of the most painful situations wherein ever a good and virtuous woman was placed on earth.
"And now, what more can be done?" said Guerin, pausing on the last step of the staircase, and speaking in a tone that implied abandonment of farther effort rather than expectation of counsel. "What can be done?"
"Nothing, my son," replied the hermit,--"nothing, without thou wouldst again visit yon fair, unhappy girl, to torture her soul without shaking her purpose. For me, I have no call to wring my fellow-creatures' hearts; and therefore I meddle herein no more. Fare thee well! I go to De Coucy Magny, as they call it, to see a wild youth whose life I saved, I fear me, to little purpose."
"But not on foot!" said Guerin; "'tis far, good brother. Take a horse, a mule, from my stable, I pray thee!"
"And why not on foot?" asked the old man. "Our Lord and Saviour walked on foot, I trow; and he might have well been prouder than thou or I."
CHAPTER XV.
The woods of De Coucy Magny stretched far over hill and dale, and plain, where now not the root of one ancient tree is to be seen; and many a vineyard, and a cornfield, and a meadow are to-day spread fair out in the open sunshine, which were then covered with deep and tangled underwood, or shaded by the broad arms of vast primeval oaks.