"My God!" he exclaimed, "she is right. She is selling herself for the most beautiful thing in the world. To steal it is a crime like Cromwell's--too great to be punished," and he put out his hand.
Then, with the cup and Nora within his reach, he heard a still, small voice, and his hand fell.
He began to argue with his conscience. "Who owns this cup?" he asked. "No one. The cardinal said it had been stolen. He said no one could sell it because no one could give title. Why, then, is it not mine as well as any one's? If I take it, whom do I wrong? Great men have never let trifles of right and wrong disturb their conduct. Who would ever have won a battle if he had taken thought of the widows? Who would ever have attained any great thing if he had not despised small things?" and he put out his hand again; and then came surging into his mind the provisions of that code which birth, associations, his school life, and, most of all, his mother, had taught him. What would they say and do at his clubs? Where, in all the world, could he hide himself, if he did this thing? He turned and fled, and, running down the church steps, he came face to face with Lady Nora and Phelim. They were laughing gayly; but, when they saw the earl's face, their laughter ceased.
"Have you seen a ghost, my lord?" asked Phelim.
The earl did not answer; he did not even hear. He stood gazing at Lady Nora. For one brief moment, when he stood before the cup, he had questioned whether a woman who would impose such a condition could be worth winning; and now, before her, her beauty overwhelmed him. He forgot Phelim; he forgot the passers-by; he forgot everything, except the woman he loved--the woman he had lost.
"Nora," he said, "I give you back your promise. I cannot give you the cup."
The color left her cheeks and her hands flew up to her heart--she gazed at him with love and pity in her eyes, and then, suddenly, her cheeks flamed, her white teeth pressed her lower lip, her little foot stamped upon the pavement.
"Very well," she said, "I regret having given you so much trouble;" and she went toward the landing. She took three steps and then turned. The two men stood as she had left them.
"Phelim," she said, smiling, "_you_ would do something for me, if I were to ask you, would you not?"