“Part!” he passionately exclaimed, “and from thee? Oh, no, no!”
“Then thou art, in truth, no heretic? It has all been a dark and terrible dream, and we shall be happy yet love!” she answered, in a voice of such trusting joyance, that Montgomeri started from her side, and hurriedly paced the room.
She laid her hand gently on his arm, and looked up confidingly in his face; but its expression was enough. Shrinking from him, she implored, “Gabriel, Gabriel, look not on me thus, or that fearful dream will come again!”
“Would, would to God it were a dream!” he exclaimed, and his hands clasped both hers with convulsive pressure. “Idalie, I am no Catholic; I dare not again kneel as I have knelt, or pray as I have prayed. No, not even to retain thy precious love, to claim thee mine—thee, dearer than life, than happiness, than all, save eternity—I dare not deny my faith. But, oh, is there no other way? Can it be, that for this, a firm conviction of truth, an honest avowal of that which my soul believes, for this that we must part? Idalie, canst thou sentence me to this?”
“I have sworn,” she said, her white lips quivering with the effort. “My vow is registered in heaven—sworn unto the dead; by death only to be absolved.”
“To retain the line of Montemar unsullied in its ancient faith. Idalie, oh, hear me; let me plead now! Give to Louis de Montemar the government of thine ancestral lands, the control of thy vassals. Thou shalt seek them when thou wilt, unaccompanied by thy husband, unshackled by his counsels. I ask but for thee; and here, far removed from the blood and misery deluging unhappy France, we may live for each other still. May not this be, love, and yet thy vow remain unbroken?”
“Montgomeri, it may not be,” she said, in a low yet collected tone, for it seemed as if the noble spirit of her race returned to give her strength for that harrowing hour.
“Tempt me not by such words as these—the love I bear thee is trial all-sufficient. My oath was pledged that I would never wed with heresy—never give my hand to one unfaithful to our old and sainted creed. Perchance that oath alone may save me from a like perdition, and if so, then is it well.”
“And doth thou scorn me for this—despise and loathe me? Oh, Idalie, thou knowest not all I have endured. In mercy add not to the anguish of this hour, by scorn of the change which imperious conscience alone had power to impel.”
“Scorn thee, Montgomeri! No; if thou, the good, the wise, can thus decide, and so find peace, is it for me to judge thee harshly? No, Idalie can never blame thee, Gabriel.”