"Thou hast given me no guerdon," she whispered softly.
"Have I not?" he replied tenderly. "Nay, sweet, the only guerdon I have to give is myself, and the heart that thou hast already in thy keeping, and which I shall surely return anon to claim at thy hands."
"Thou shalt not have it then," she retorted, smiling again as she raised her blue eyes to meet his dark ones. "For thou hast given it me for all time, and in place—in place——"
"In place?" he echoed, bending still lower.
"Foolish one!" she cried, with a little laugh which ended in a sob, "thou knowest very well what heart thou hast in exchange—a heart of Brittany, monsieur, for whose sake thou must be tender of its countrymen."
"I swear it," he replied—"I swear it, little Gwennola," and so rode away through the forest, and out over the wild heaths beyond, on the road to Rennes.
CHAPTER XII
The long-cherished dream of the astute and far-seeing François Dunois, Comte de Longueville, had apparently been brought to an untimely end by the imperious will of a young girl. In spite of the representations of her guardian and trusted councillors, as well as those of her faithful friend, the Count Dunois himself, Anne remained firm in her rejection of the proposal to unite herself with the King of France, and thus form an indissoluble bond of union between the kingdom and duchy.
"King Charles," she said, "is an unjust prince, who wishes to despoil me of the inheritance of my fathers. Has he not desolated my duchy, pillaged my subjects, destroyed my towns? Has he not entered into the most deceitful alliances with my allies, the Kings of Spain and England, endeavouring to overreach and ruin me? And have I not, by the advice of all of you who now counsel the contrary, just contracted anew a solemn alliance with the King of the Romans, approved by you and all my people? Do not believe that I will so falsify my word, nor that I will burthen my conscience with an act which I feel to be so reprehensible."
In vain her council urged upon her the necessity of yielding to their suggestions; in vain de Rieux, de Montauban, and the Prince of Orange joined with Dunois in pleading the state of Britanny, the impossibility of its defending itself, the certainty of its falling a prey to the first ambitious neighbour who attacked it, since their Duchess would be in a distant country, married to a man whose own subjects were continually in a state of rebellion.