“I am not free, but enslaved—by love and worship of you. Would you deny me; Would you?”
“Not I, but fate,” she answered heavily, and he knew that the woman at Cumnor was in her mind.
“Fate will soon mend the wrong that fate has done—very soon now.” He took her hand, and, melted again from her dignity, she let it lie in his. “When that is done, sweet, then will I claim you for my own.”
“When that is done, Robin?” she questioned almost fearfully, as if a sudden dread suspicion broke upon her mind. “When what is done?”
He paused a moment to choose his words, what time she stared intently into the face that gleamed white in the surrounding gloom.
“When that poor ailing spirit is at rest.” And he added: “It will be soon.”
“Thou hast said the same aforetime, Robin. Yet it has not so fallen out.”
“She has clung to life beyond what could have been believed of her condition,” he explained, unconscious of any sinister ambiguity. “But the end, I know, is very near—a matter but of days.”
“Of days!” she shivered, and moved forward to the edge of the terrace, he keeping step beside her. Then she stood awhile in silence, looking down at the dark oily surge of water. “You loved her once, Robin?” she asked, in a queer, unnatural voice.
“I never loved but once,” answered that perfect courtier.