She had heard enough, as she entered the house at that decisive moment, to comprehend the whole; and, if the proud and high-born knights were at a loss to understand, much less appreciate, the noble virtue of the serf, the poor uneducated slave girl had seen and felt it all—felt it thrill to her heart's core, and inspire her weakness with equal strength, equal devotion.
She had argued, she had prayed, she had implored, clinging to his knees, that for the love of Heaven, for the love of herself, he would accept the boon of freedom, and leave her to her fate, which would be sweeter far to her, she swore, from the knowledge of his prosperity, than it could be rendered by the fruition of the greatest worldly bliss. And then, when she found prayer and supplication fruitless, she, too, waxed strong and glorious. She lifted her hand to heaven, and swore before the blessed Virgin and her ever-living Son, that, would he yield to her entreaties and be free, she would be true to him, and to him alone, forever; but should he still persist in his wicked and mad refusal of God's own most especial gift of freedom, she would at least deprive him of the purpose of his impious resolution, place an impenetrable barrier between them two, and profess herself the bride of Heaven.
At length, as he only chafed and resisted more and more, till resistance and fever were working almost delirium—any thing but conviction and repentance—like a true woman, she betook herself from argument, and tears, and supplication, to comforting, consoling, and caressing; and, had the rage and fever of his body, or the terrible excitement of his tortured mind, been less powerful, she could not but have won the day, in the noblest of all strifes—the strife of mutual disinterestedness and devotion.
"O woman! in our hours of ease,
Inconstant, coy, and hard to please;
When pain and anguish rend the brow,
A ministering angel thou!"
CHAPTER VIII.
GUENDOLEN'S BOWER.
"Four gray walls, and four square towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,