"Then my son, whom, not knowing, you had taken pity upon and raised to honour, and who is now your faithful servant, sent a secret messenger that you would come to abide secretly with me till a certain dark day had overpassed in Kernsberg. And then there sprang up in my heart a dreadful conceit that he loved you, knowing young blood and hearing the fame of your beauty, and I was afraid for the greatness of the sin—that one should love his sister."
Joan made a quick gesture of dissent, but the woman went on.
"I thought, being a woman alone, and one also, who had given all freely up for love's sake, that he would certainly love you even as I had loved. And when I saw you in my house, so cold and so proud, and when I thought within me that but for you my son would have been a mighty prince, a strange terrible anger and madness came over me, darkening my soul. For a moment I would have slain you. But I could not, because you were asleep. And, even as you stirred, I heard you speak the name of a man, as only one who loves can speak it. I know right well how that is, having listened to it with a glad heart in the night. The name was——"
"Hold!" cried Joan of the Sword Hand. "I believe you—I forgive you!"
"The name," continued Theresa von Lynar, "was not that of my son! And now," she went on, slowly rising from the couch to her height, "I am ready. I bid you slay me for the evil deed my heart was willing for a moment to do!"
"I bid you slay me for the evil deed my heart was willing to do."
Joan looked at her full in the eyes for the space of a breath. Then suddenly she held out her hand and answered like her father's daughter.
"Nay," she said, "I only marvel that you did not strike me to the heart, because of your son's loss and my father's sin!"