In a moment, she knew not how, the warm silence of the night grew full of love and life. He was close to her with a white, passionate face looking into hers, questioning her very soul. Perhaps their hands touched. It was like the tumult and yearning of waters in a dark and narrow place.
Denise was trembling from head to foot. Aymery had touched her hand, no more than that, yet nothing but a thin film of darkness seemed to hold the two apart. Denise heard the outpouring of his words, a man’s words, poignant and tender, striking her very heart. What could she say to him, with this renunciation of hers so near.
“Denise, why have you left us?”
She covered her face with her arms.
“Lord, lord, was it not you who told me to seek a surer refuge?”
His hands were straining back, and straining forward, as though to touch her, and not to touch.
“Yes, but that was a while ago. Things happen in this world, when a man is tied to his bed. If all has been well with you——”
She let her arms fall from before her face, and there, above them, the dark hillside was seamed with a stream of light. And in the flare of the torches she could see many shadowy figures moving, and the outline of a great cross carried in the van.
Aymery had seemed blind to all save the white figure before him. But the torch flare struck across his face, and he seemed suddenly to understand.
Then Denise spoke, as though compelling herself.