The girl hesitated a little, and then held out her hand. The young man took it.
"And your friend!" she said. "There in Pilate's House you must wait, you two, till I see—till I know that she is worth the sacrifice."
Once again she laughed a little, seeing a wave of joy or perhaps some more complex emotion sweep over John's face.
"Ah," she cried, with a returning trace of her first bitterness, "you are certain that she is worthy. Doubtless so for you! But as the sacrifice is mine—I also must be certain—ah, very certain. For there is no back-going. It is the end of all things for Valentine la Niña."
She laughed little and low, like one on the verge of hysterics. A nerve twitched irregularly in her throat under her chin to the right. The pink came out brighter to her cheek. It was a terrible laugh to hear in that still place. And the mirthlessness of it—it struck the Abbé John cold.
"This shall be my revenge," she said, fixing him, with flame in her honey-coloured eyes; "long after, long—oh, so—so long after"—she waved her arm—"you will know! And you will see that, however much she has loved you, hers was the love which takes. But mine—ah, mine is different. Mine is the love which gives—the only true woman's love—without scant, without measure, without bounds of good or evil, without thought of recompense, or hope of reward. Love net, unselfish, boundless, encompassing as the sea, and like a fountain sealed within the heart of a woman. And then—then you shall remember that when ye might—ye would not—ah, ye would not!"
A sob tore her throat.
"But one day, or it may be through all eternity, you shall know which is the greater love, and you shall wish—no, you are a man, you will be content with the lesser, the more comprehensible, the goodwife warming her feet by the fire over against yours. There is your ideal. While I—I—would have carried you beyond the stars!"
The Abbé John took a step nearer her. He had some vague notion of comforting—not knowing.
But she thrust her arms out furiously as if to strike him.