“Lord—save me——!”
Aymery’s arms went round her, and she clung to him with sudden passion, as though life were there, and love, and hope.
“Hold me—keep me—let me not go! Oh, but the shame of it—the selfishness! Closer, closer to you! I am afraid—I am afraid!”
She was trembling like one lifted from the torture of the rack. Her hands clung to him, the hands of a frightened child, and of an impassioned woman. Aymery turned her in his arms, so that her hair fell down across the bed, and her face was under his.
“Rest here, my heart. Who—on God’s earth—shall take you from me?”
Their eyes met and held in one long look.
“Lord, lord—ah—do not pity me,” she said, “not in the way that hurts a woman’s heart.”
Aymery kissed her upon the mouth.
“God forgive me,” he said, “if ever I have made you think that.”
Meanwhile Marpasse had returned, leaving Grimbald in the wood-shed, and creeping softly across the room she stood listening at the closed door. Such a true friend was Marpasse that the two within might have forgiven her her eaves-dropping. It was no inquisitive spirit that waited there silent, and open-mouthed, listening with wet eyes to words that were sacred. Marpasse soon knew the truth, and she crept away on tip-toe.