“Well?”
“Have I not suffered, am I not wise in a woman’s way? Ah, my lady, let me in. We have shared much together; trust me further.”
Very slowly Rosamunde took her hands from her face, and turned and looked into Miriam’s eyes. No vulgar curiosity did she find therein, no insolent challenging of the truth. The girl’s face seemed softened by pity, yet not that pert patronage that affronts the soul.
“Child,” she said sadly, turning again towards the east, “how easily are we women fooled by pride, driven to cheat our nobler self by the mad anguish of a passionate moment. Would to God I had had less pride!”
Miriam drew to her with her lithe, warm body, as though her very nearness should speak of sympathy.
“Lady,” she said, “we women err according to the fierceness of our instincts. Love turns to lightning in a moment; or, like the moon, we frown at a cloud that dulls for an instant the distant stars.”
“True, true,” said Rosamunde, gazing towards the woods. “Words wound us too easily when we dote on words and behold not the truth that shines beneath. We cannot always bear the truth when that same truth wounds our desire. So we rebel, even as a good hound will turn when stung by the lash in a master’s hand.”
“And yet it is not love that turns.”
“No, but the quick instinct of a passionate heart that snaps at destiny, to repent betimes. For when the pain is quick and keen, the finer reason slacks the lead, and the hot self leaps out on love, only to slink when the wrath is past.”
She leant her chin once more upon her hands and watched the azure deepen in the east, with the vain anguish of her penitence. Was it but a week since she had come from Agravale to the sea, stirred by the unreasoning fever of her wrath? Yet day by day her heart had cooled, till naught seemed left in it but slow despair. “Tristan, Tristan!” cried her soul. Often she would thrust her arms out in the night, and pray that Tristan might return once more.