Fleta slowly opened her eyes. It was Hilary who knelt beside her; she was lying on the dewy grass, and Hilary knelt there, the morning sun shining on his head and lighting up his beautiful boy’s face. And Fleta as she lay and looked dully at him felt herself to be immeasurably older than he was; to be possessed of knowledge and experience which seemed immense by his ignorance. And yet she lay here, nerveless, hopeless.
“What is it?” again asked Hilary, growing momently more distressed.
“Do you want to know?” she said gently, and yet with an accent of pity that was almost contempt in her tone. “You would not understand.”
“Oh, tell me!” said Hilary. “I love you—let me serve you!”
She hardly seemed to hear his words, but his voice of entreaty made her go on speaking in answer:
“I have tried,” she said, “and failed.”
“Tried what?” exclaimed Hilary, “and how failed? Oh, my Princess, I believe these devils of priests have given you some fever—you do not know what you are saying!”
“I know very well,” replied Fleta; “I am in no fever. I am all but dead—that is no strange thing, for I am stricken.” Hilary looked at her as she lay, and saw that her words were true. How strange a figure she looked, lying there so immovably, as if crushed or dead, upon the dewy grass; wrapped in her white robes. And her face was white with a terrible whiteness; the great eyes looked out from the white face with a sad, smileless gaze; and would those pale drawn lips never smile again? Was the radiant, brilliant Fleta changed for ever into this paralysed white creature? Hilary knew that even if it was so he loved her more passionately and devotedly than before. His soul yearned towards her.
“Tell me, explain to me, what has done this?” he cried out, growing almost incoherent in his passionate distress. “I demand to know by my love for you. What have you tried to do in this awful past night?”
Fleta opened her eyes, the lids of which had drooped heavily, and looked straight into his as she answered: