"But Gilbert, my youngest, innocent as song-thrush! gentle as a little girl!" the lady wailed.
"And I will speak of him also," continued Richard. "Before I came to St. Julien, I had had quarrel with Sir Louis. Yet we warred in knightly fashion. Sir Louis lost the day, but there was no stain upon his honor. Still there was little love betwixt me and any of the De Valmont name when I went to Auvergne. Then I came to St. Julien, and saw my grandfather. Holy Cross! dear lady—could you have seen him, you would have melted with pity—all seared by fire, those sightless eyeballs!"
"No more! by every saint, no more!" moaned Lady Ide.
"When I saw him, and heard of Raoul, and heard that he had a younger brother Gilbert, I swore a great oath to Heaven that the Valmonts were a godless brood, and I would slay them all—all. For in my eyes Gilbert was but as his brother." Lady Ide groaned, but Richard went on: "Then when I stormed Valmont, I fought Raoul face to face and man to man, and he perished as befits a valiant cavalier. Whether my own sins are not now as great as his, let God judge; but if he died, he died—I dare to say it—not without cause."
"It is true! Dear Christ, it is true! And I was his mother." Lady Ide had her face bowed on her hands, and shook with her sobs. Richard drove straight on:—
"Then the devil entered into me. I was mad with lust of slaying and the heat of battle. My veins seemed turned to fire. I knew all that I did, yet in a strange way knew not—only beheld myself striking, shouting, running, as if I stood a great way off. I struck you down foully. I slew Gilbert at the altar, and all the time that I raged, I felt deep within—that what I did, was a sin against God. I shattered the holy relics; I blasphemed heaven. There are those who have sinned more than I, but they are not many."
The lady was not weeping now. She was staring at Richard with hard, tearless eyes,—all the picture of that fearful night standing, as in a vision, before them.
"But I have been punished,—punished, perhaps, after my sins,—yet scarce has God given me grace to bear. I had a mother who held me dear—dearer, if I may say it, than you held Gilbert."
"It cannot be!" cried Ide, starting up, but Sebastian frowned and she was quiet.
"I had a mother, a father who also loved me, a brother gentle as Gilbert, and a sister," and when Richard spoke the word even Louis turned away his gaze, there was such agony on Longsword's face. "And now tidings have come from Sicily that father, mother, and brother are dead, slain wantonly by Iftikhar Eddauleh, whom Louis knows well; and my sister! holy Mother of God, drive the thought from my heart! is the captive of that paynim. So think you not the sin I committed against you and yours has not met its reward? Think you I shall greatly fear, if Sir Louis calls in his men and bids them slay me? What is death beside the pains that I bear here!" And Richard smote his breast. Then Louis burst forth:—