Pelleas had neither the desire nor the leisure to stand juggling courtesies with the woman.
“Madame,” he said, “we shall fight. Leave the rest to Providence. I can give you no better comfort.”
“No,” she said, “no”—as in a daze.
Pelleas, reading her misery, repented somewhat of his abrupt truthfulness.
“Come,” he said, with a kind strength and a hand on her shoulder; “go to the house and rest there with Sister Igraine. I see you are too much shaken. Go in and pray if you can, while we hold the island.”
The girl looked at him unreservedly for a moment. Then she gave a little laugh that was half a sob, and, bending to him, kissed his hand before he could prevent her. Giving him yet another glance from her tumbled hair, she stepped aside to Igraine, and they turned together towards the manor, and the trees and gardens that ringed it. The girl had set her hand in Igraine’s with a little gesture that was intended to be indicative of confidence in the supposed nun’s greater intelligence.
“Let us go and sit under that yew tree,” she suggested. “I cannot stifle within walls now. You are named Igraine. I am called Morgan—Morgan la Blanche,—and I am a lord’s daughter. I almost envy you your frock now, for death cannot frighten you as it frightens me. Of course you are very good, and the Saints guard and watch over you. As for me, I have always been very thoughtless.”
“Not more than I,” said Igraine, with a smile. “I have often hummed romances when I should have praised Paul or Peter.”
“But doesn’t the fear of death blight you like a frost?”