But when, all in a moment, as Claire is winding round her waist a light Moorish scarf, worked in a perfect kaleidoscope of silken thread and pearls, Blanche (unable any longer to keep silent) staggers up and falls upon her neck, sobbing as if her heart would break, it is the most astonishing event her small experience has ever conceived.
Much more, when Blanche, putting her rosy lips to Claire’s shell-like ear, whispers in a voice choked with tears: “I love him, I love him! I cannot go to Don Pedro. I know he will kill me. I hate him. I won’t go! Be kind to me, Claire, and help me, for I love him!”--her astonishment turns into terror, for she thinks Blanche is gone quite mad.
“Love whom?” she gasps, feeling cold all over, and letting the scarf drop to support the quivering form of Blanche.
“Who? Why, Don Fadique to be sure,” she answers, blushing all over. “Why--you must be blind, Claire, not to see it--at Narbonne. Who else could it be?”
And Blanche’s fair head, covered with small child-like curls, drops upon Claire’s friendly neck and buries itself there, as she clings to her tighter and tighter.
“Oh, Blanche!” was all Claire could say, being too utterly staggered to remonstrate. “Don Fadique! Why, he is your husband’s brother? Oh, Blanche, do you mean what you say?”
“Yes, I do,” falters out Blanche, in an almost inaudible voice “I love him, oh, I love him!”
The very uttering of these words gave her courage. The secret had passed her lips. The spell of silence was broken.
“Don Fadique!” exclaims Claire. “Why, he must be the greatest traitor in the world.”
“He does not know it!” returns Blanche, reddening to the roots of her hair. “He does not guess it. He is an angel.” As she speaks, a quick, warm light comes into her eyes, a soft flame rises on her cheeks, kindling up her whole face with an inexpressible glow. Even her slender figure seems to gather strength and height. “No! no! you must say nothing against him! He is perfect.”
Claire, who was very pious, and just out of a convent, where the nuns had taught her all men were dangerous and to be avoided, actually recoiled. That a wife should love her lord and receive presents from him and letters was admissible, even among the nuns--but another man!