Von Glauben was altogether taken aback.
“Then—you know—?” he stammered.
“Oh yes, I know!” responded Ronsard sternly and bitterly; “I know everything! There has been full confession! If the husband of my Gloria were more prince than man, my knife would have slit his throat! But he is more man than prince!—and I have let him live—for her sake!”
“Well—that is so far good!” said Von Glauben, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and heaving a deep sigh of relief; “And as you fully comprehend the situation, it saves me the trouble of explaining it! You are a philosopher, Ronsard! Permit me to remind you of that fact! You know, like myself, that what is done, even if it is done foolishly, cannot be undone!”
“I know it! Who should know it so well as I!” and Ronsard set a delicate rose-tree roughly in the hole he had dug for it, and began to fiercely pile in the earth around it;—“Fate is fate, and there is no gainsaying it! The law of Compensation will always have its way! Look you, man!—and listen! I, Réné Ronsard, once killed a king!—and now in my old age, the only creature I ever loved is tricked by the son of a king! It is just! So be it!”
He bent his white head over his digging again, and Von Glauben was for a moment silent, vaguely amazed and stupefied by this sudden declaration of a past crime.
“You should not say ‘tricked,’ my friend!” he at last ventured to remark; “Prince Humphry is an honest lad;—he means to keep his word!”
Ronsard looked up, his eyes gleaming with fury.
“Keep his word? Bah! How can he? Who in this wide realm will give him the honourable liberty to keep his word? Will he acknowledge Gloria as his wife before the nation?—she a foundling and a castaway? Will he make her his future queen? Not he! He will forsake her, and live with another woman, in sin which the law will sanctify!”
He went on planting the rose-tree, then,—dropping his spade,—tossed up his head and hands with a wild gesture.