"There is something else," he said. "It is—it is—that I cannot bear to leave you! God knows I could not leave you if I would!"
Joan of Hohenstein started. The words had been spoken in a low tone, yet with suppressed vehemence, as though driven from the young man's lips against his will. But there was no mistaking their purport. Yet they were spoken so hopelessly, and withal so gently, that she could not be angry.
"Conrad—Conrad," she murmured reproachfully, "I thought I could have trusted you. You promised never again to forget what we must both remember!"
"In so thinking you did well," he replied; "you may trust me to the end. But the privilege of speech and testimony is not denied even to the criminal upon the scaffold."
A wave of pity passed over Joan. A month before she would have withdrawn herself in hot anger. But Isle Rugen had gentled all her ways. The peace of that ancient fortalice, the wash of its ambient waters, the very lack of incident, the sense of the mysteries of tragic life which surrounded her on all sides, the deep thoughts she had been thinking alone with herself, the companionship of this man whom she loved—all these had wrought a new spirit in Joan of the Sword Hand. Women who cannot be pitiful are but half women. They have never yet entered upon their inheritance. But now Joan was coming to her own again. For to pity of Theresa von Lynar she was adding pity for Conrad of Courtland and—Joan of Hohenstein.
"Speak," she said very gently. "Do not be afraid; tell me all that is in your heart."
Joan was not disinclined to hear any words that the young man might speak. She believed that she could listen unmoved even to his most passionate declarations of love. Like the wise physician, she would listen, understand, prescribe—and administer the remedy.
But the pines of Isle Rugen stood between this woman and the girl who had ridden away so proudly from the doors of the Kernsberg minster at the head of her four hundred lances. Besides, she had not forgotten the tournament and the slim secretary who had once stood before this man in the river parlour of the Summer Palace.
Then Conrad spoke in a low voice, very distinct and even in its modulation.
"Joan," he said, "once on a time I dreamed of being loved—dreamed that among all the world of women there might be one woman for me. Such things must come when deep sleep falleth upon a young man. Waking I put them from me, even as I put arms and warfare aside. I believed that I had conquered the lust of the eye. Now I know that I can never again be true priest, never serve the altar with a clean heart.