When she had gone the man put his sword up into its scabbard, dismounted, and stood holding the bridle of his horse. Denise’s eyes were fixed upon the helmet with its shadowy cleft in the shape of a cross. The man saw her bosom rising and falling, and that her eyes were troubled. Marpasse’s knife was half hidden by the grey folds of her gown.
The man put both hands to the helmet, lifted it, and let it fall upon the grass. And it was Aymery whom Denise saw.
She looked at him with wide, eloquent, and frightened eyes, a rush of colour crimsoning her face, for Denise remembered the Aymery of Reigate Town, the stern-faced captain hounding Gaillard into the night. And all the shame and ignominy that she had suffered seemed to fall and break upon her head. She stood speechless, her eyes looking at him like the eyes of one who expects a blow.
“Denise!”
He held out his hands to her, but she covered her face, and leant against the trunk of the tree. Yet she did not weep or make any sound. It was a dry, frozen anguish with her that could neither move nor speak. Aymery watched her as a man might watch one in bitter pain, knowing not what to do to help or comfort.
“Denise!”
Perhaps the pity in his voice stung her. God, that it should have come to this, for she had read the truth upon his face. Denise raised her head, and their eyes met. Her mouth was quivering, but she looked at Aymery as though challenging the whole world in that one man. Perhaps Denise could not have told what made her do the thing she did. The fever of fatalism was in her blood, and Marpasse’s knife was in her hand. And Aymery, stupefied, watched the red stain start out against the grey cloth of her gown.
CHAPTER XXXI
Denise slipped slowly to her knees, still leaning the weight of her body against the trunk of the tree. The languor of death seemed upon her, but her eyes could still meet Aymery’s, brown eyes swimming with the death mist, and growing blind to the sunlight. The man’s shocked face, and his outstretched hands were the last things that she remembered.
“Lord, it is better so.”