“Now,” she said, “I am going to tell you a great many things which you have earned the right to know. To begin with, you are now in a monastery, belonging to the most rigid of the religious orders.”
“Are you a Catholic?” asked Hilary suddenly. And then laughed at himself for such a question. How could Fleta be catalogued like this? He knew her to be a creature whose thought could not be limited.
“No,” she answered simply. “I am not a Catholic. But I belong to this order. I fear such an answer will be so unintelligible as to be like an impertinence. Forgive me, Hilary.”
Ah, what a tone she spoke in, gentle, sweet—the voice of the woman he loved. Hilary lost all control over himself. He sprang to his feet and stood before her.
“I do not want to know your religion,” he exclaimed passionately, “I do not want to know where we are, or why we are here. I ask you only this—Are you indeed my love given to me, as you said this morning?—or is your love given to the king, and are you only laughing at me. It is enough to make me think so, to bring me here to meet him! Oh, it is a cruel insult, a cruel mockery! For, Fleta, you have made me love you with all my heart and soul. My whole life is yours. Be honest and tell me the truth.”
“You have a powerful rival,” said Fleta deliberately. “Is he not handsome, courtly, all that a king should be? And I am pledged to him. Yes, Hilary, I am pledged to him. Would you have the woman you love live a lie for your sake, and hourly betray the man she marries?”
“I would have her give me her love,” said Hilary despairingly, “at all costs, at all hazards. Oh, Fleta, do not keep me in agony. You said this morning that you loved me, that you would give yourself to me. Are you going to take those words back?”
“No,” said Fleta, “I am not. For I do love you, Hilary. Did I not see you first in my sleep? Did I not dream of you? Did I not come to your house in search of you? Unwomanly, was it not? No one but Fleta would have done it. And Fleta would only have done it for love. You do not know what she risked—what she risks now—for you! Oh, Hilary, if you could guess what I have at stake. Never mind. None can know my own danger but myself.”
“Escape from it!” said Hilary in a sort of madness. A passionate desire to help her came over him and swept all reasonable thoughts away. “You are so powerful, so free, there is no need for you to encounter danger. Does it lie in these people, in this strange place? Come back then to the city, to your home. What is there to induce you to run risks, you that have all that the world can offer? Is there anything you need that you cannot have?”
“Yes,” said Fleta, “there is. I need something which no power of royalty can give me. I need something which I may have to sacrifice my life to obtain. Yet I am ready to sacrifice it—oh, how ready! What is my life to me! What is my life to me! Nothing!”