"Oh, love that is so weak," cried the King, "that it cannot do more than this ... to see thee thus ... what greater misery could I have than to see thee thus."
Still she did not speak. She had done much for him—crossed the seas and become a supplicant at her brother's court, sold her jewels, persuaded, inspired, and led many to join his standard, raised an army for his cause, been untiring and dauntless in her counsels, her energy, her confidence; but now a fatigue that was like despair was over her. She felt about him a fatality as if success was impossible for him, and all her ruined pride and splendour, her lost hopes, her lost endeavours crowded upon her till she could do nothing but weep.
Charles stooped and, with infinite gentleness, drew her hands from her face.
"This is a bad augury for me to-morrow," he said.
She lifted her head then, the sobs still catching her throat. It was too dark for him to see her face, distorted by tears; only the dim white oval of it showed in the dusk.
"No bad auguries," she said. "No—to-morrow must see a turn in our miserable fortunes."
He kissed her with a trembling reverence of devotion, and her tears dried on his cold cheek.
"Have confidence," she murmured, her face pressed against his lace collar. She was always heartening him, firing his hesitation, directing his indecision, and the instinct of guiding and inspiring him came to her now even in her moment of weakness. "Have no sad thoughts, no ill thoughts—God will fight for his anointed King. If I seem confounded, consider that I have been troubled with many things."
He drew her gently towards the window, and they stood together looking out on to the garden. The white hawthorn and roses, the last lilac still showed pallid through the gloaming; the stars were beginning to sparkle in a sky from which the gold had faded, leaving it the colour of dead violets; the pure air was rich and sweet as honey.