“No doubt, child.”
“Then why trouble for his death, Pelleas; you would not shrink from treading out an adder’s brains?”
“Ah, but there is the man’s soul. I feel for him after my own down-bringing. What chance had he of penitence?”
“True,” she said gravely, “but your mother, the Abbess Gratia, used to tell us that bad men repented only in legends and in the Bible; never in grim life. Besides, you prevented the man committing worse offences in the future, and getting deeper into the pit. Why, Pelleas, hundreds of good knights have lost life for a mere matter of love; why trouble for the life of a wretch who perhaps never knew what truth meant. You would not grieve for men slain in battle.”
“In battle the blood is hot and the brain afire. This was a rank and reasonable stroke.”
"And therefore the more deserved. Why trouble about it, Pelleas? In faith, since your plight makes me tyrant, I forbid such brooding. It is but the evil fancy of a distraught mind, an incubus I must chase away. See, your hands are hot, and your forehead too. Will you sleep again, or shall I sing to you?"
“Presently,” he said. “I have more to speak of yet.”
Igraine knelt by him on her cushion, serene and tender.
“Say on, Pelleas,” she said; “a woman loves a man’s confidence. If I can give you comfort I will gladly listen here till midnight. You are not yourself, weak from loss of blood, and a gnat’s sting is like a lance thrust to you. Tell me your other troubles.”
Pelleas groaned, hesitated, looked up into her eyes, and recanted inwardly. He furbished up a minor woe to serve the occasion.