“Very well, madame,” I said; “then you cannot go to your father, nor can he come to you, for your strength is spent. Nay, take it,” I added kindly, “as you take the physician’s draught.”
She obeyed me mechanically, and her eyes followed me as I poured out some of the liquor and drank it and ate the bread also, for I had need to break my fast. And, as I did it, the thought came to me suddenly that this was our bridal banquet, and that my wife and I ate together for the first time. Involuntarily I looked at her and found her large eyes fixed upon my face. Something of the same thought must have entered her mind too, for suddenly she dropped her face on her hands and I saw her very ears—little, shell-like ears, too—turn rosy-red, and her whole delicate frame shook, from head to foot, with a hard sob—of anguish or of terror, I knew not which.
XXI: THE STEWARD’S REVENGE
THE sight of her grief, or her terror, so far unmanned me that my hand shook until I spilled some of the wine upon the table, and noting this, and feeling my own weakness, I set the glass down and turned away. The room, which had served as an office for Maître le Bastien, was sparsely furnished, and the light of the tapers, pale and flickering, gave it a cold and uninviting aspect. It was a poor place to bring the Princess Daria—after all the magnificence of her home, and after that fearful day, for—as I reflected—half that she had endured would have crushed a weaker woman. Peril and mortification and the strain of wild excitement had doubtless worn her out, and she was finding, at last, a woman’s relief in tears. She wept, indeed, with such passionate abandon, such an agony of suppressed sobs and sighs, that it would have moved a man of stone—and I was her lover. For the moment I forgot that I was not privileged to comfort her, that, though her husband, I was less known to her than the very slaves in her kitchen, and of less moment.
The sight of her distress touched me so nearly that I forgot all this, I say, forgot the restraint that I had meant to lay upon myself, and going to her, I laid my hand lightly and gently on her bowed head.
“I pray you be comforted,” I said softly, my voice shaken by emotion; “if I can——”
I got no further. She recoiled from my touch as if I had stung her, looking at me with something akin to terror in her eyes.
“Do not touch me!” she cried, her white lips quivering; “do not—dare—to touch me!”
It was my turn to recoil, suddenly apprised of her horror and dread of me—of the man who loved her and had risked his life for her. It hardened my heart. I drew back and, walking to the other end of the room, stood looking at her, with folded arms. And she looked at me; her eyes shining and large and dark in her white face, and her whole figure—as I saw plainly—quivering like a leaf. She tried twice to speak, and in my anger and grief I let her struggle, and at last she hid her face in her hand and spoke to me in a strange, shaking tone.
“I am in your power,” she said; “you—you have gone through a ceremony with me; perhaps—you think you are my—my husband——” Her voice trailed off in a sob of terror.