"Diane! Diane!" he whispered; "fairest love, with what an aching heart I have awaited thy coming! She is condemned, Diane—the little Gwennola is condemned to death; and yet so fair a dream I had of her but yesternight, for methought she was a child again, lily-crowned and laughing, and that she ran to me, crying my name in joy, and, clinging to my neck, pressed her flowers upon me, saying she had gathered them for love's sake; and her eyes looked into mine with so sweet a tenderness that I awoke sobbing, calling to remembrance that she was a witch who had striven for my death."
"No witch!" cried Diane, as she knelt, weeping, at his side; "no witch, Yvon, but pure and innocent as the child of thy dreams. Alas! alas! that, for the sake of thy love for her, thy love for me must die; and yet I am unworthy of it, unworthy of aught but thy hatred, thy loathing, and thy scorn!"
"My hatred?" he whispered tenderly, whilst his feeble hands strayed fondly towards the tresses of her bowed head. "My hatred, little Diane? That could never be, wert thou—wert thou—ah! all that thou art not, my sweetest one!"
"Alas! alas! thou knowest not!" sobbed the girl. "Ah! the bitterness of telling thee, Yvon! Why may I not die the sooner, so that I shall not look into thine eyes and see the scorn and loathing which thou must needs feel towards a thing so foul?"
"Hush!" he whispered faintly, "thou shalt not say such words, Diane, my adored."
The very tenderness of his speech, the quiver in his voice, made the task more terrible; yet it had to be essayed, and with bowed head and sobbing breath she faltered it forth.
When it was finished there was silence in the room. Outside the wind moaned and shrieked; reproachful voices, they sounded, calling to those within that that very day innocence was suffering for the guilty. The raindrops that splattered against the grey walls without seemed to be fingers knocking for admittance, ghostly fingers which mocked and gibed whilst the wind voices wept and lamented the louder. And as she listened, Diane de Coray crouched the lower in a very agony of self-abasement and remorse, not daring to look up and find the eyes she had learnt to love so passionately grow hard and cruel as love died within them.
"Diane!"
The voice roused her, and in spite of her forebodings she slowly raised her head. The face on the pillows was deathly pale, and the poor lips quivered piteously in their pain and horror; but the eyes—ah! those eyes! love was not dead there, but so mortally wounded that his agony was the more terrible to witness.
"Yvon! Yvon!" she moaned. "Ah! why may I not die? Why may I not die? I may not ask thee to forgive me, but oh! for the sake of our sweet Lady of Pity, curse me not!"