"You will pray, therefore, for my success? It means all you can most desire, all that you can hope for till these troubles are past. Once back in his house, no further harm can come near you; you are safe with him. Nay, even though he were in danger through any further success of theirs, you are still safe. They deem you one of themselves."
"I will pray," she said, "for your success, your prosperity, now and forever--for all that you may undertake. Yet--yet--do you know?--I have almost ceased to pray at all now."
"Oh, oh, God forbid!" he exclaimed, his heart wrung by her words.
"To whom am I to pray? What am I, how am I to approach Him? If I am a Protestant I must pray for his, my father's, downfall; if a Catholic, for the destruction of what I----" She did not finish her sentence, but added instead: "Best never utter prayer at all; forget that from my childhood I have been taught to worship humbly and to never know a petition unheard. Oh," she said, thrusting her hands through the great coils of golden hair that adorned her head, "oh, that I had died on the day you saved my life, that the bullet which pierced my poor gouvernante's breast had found mine instead!"
Profoundly touched, moved to the deepest pity and sympathy by her words--the words of one so young and fair, yet, alas! so distraught--he moved nearer to her and, unaware even, perhaps, of his action, took her hand.
"Why," he said, speaking very low, yet with a voice that seemed as music in her ears, "why feel thus, suffer thus? In spite of all the dissensions between our faiths--grant even that you are no Protestant--we worship the same God though we see him with different eyes. Urbaine," he whispered, forgetting as he spoke that he had broken down the barrier of formality which had been between them until now, "if you can not pray for me to-night, can not pray that my efforts may meet with success, how can I depart and leave you here? How go, knowing that your heart is not with me?"
"Not with you?" she whispered in her turn. "Not with you? Alas----" and again broke off, saying no more.
"Urbaine," he continued, emboldened now to repeat softly her name, and perhaps not understanding her repetition of his words, deeming, it may be, that the repetition confirmed them, "Urbaine, your heart, your wishes must go with me, with the cause I undertake. It is the cause of peace and reconciliation, of strengthening your king's hands by winning back his subjects to him. For if this fleet can but get a foothold for its men on shore, Louis must make terms with all who are now beating him down; not only in this fair Languedoc, but over all Europe a lasting peace may ensue. A peace," he continued, still gently yet impressively, "between your land and mine. Yours and mine," he repeated, dwelling, it seemed to her, pleasantly on the coupling of their interests together--"yours and mine."
For answer she only sighed, then she said a moment later:
"Yet to go on this mission may mean death to you. If Montrevel or Julien caught you--O God! it sickens me to think of your peril. They might not know, might not even believe, all that you have done for me. The end would be awful."