Miriam drew to her with her lithe, warm body, as though her very nearness should speak of sympathy.
“Lady,” she said, “we women err according to the fierceness of our instincts. Love turns to lightning in a moment; or, like the moon, we frown at a cloud that dulls for an instant the distant stars.”
“True, true,” said Rosamunde, gazing towards the woods. “Words wound us too easily when we dote on words and behold not the truth that shines beneath. We cannot always bear the truth when that same truth wounds our desire. So we rebel, even as a good hound will turn when stung by the lash in a master’s hand.”
“No, but the quick instinct of a passionate heart that snaps at destiny, to repent betimes. For when the pain is quick and keen, the finer reason slacks the lead, and the hot self leaps out on love, only to slink when the wrath is past.”
She leant her chin once more upon her hands and watched the azure deepen in the east, with the vain anguish of her penitence. Was it but a week since she had come from Agravale to the sea, stirred by the unreasoning fever of her wrath? Yet day by day her heart had cooled, till naught seemed left in it but slow despair. “Tristan, Tristan!” cried her soul. Often she would thrust her arms out in the night, and pray that Tristan might return once more.
Even as she stood there, gazing over the hills and woods where the river wound down towards the sea, she saw a black shape glide from the trees over the broadening bosom of the Gloire. She saw oars flash and glisten against the setting sun. Right in the golden path came a barge, bearing for Holy Guard across the river.
Rosamunde stood back and watched the boat with both hands folded over her heart. Then without a word she sprang away, sped down the galleries in the dusk, where many a shaft of gold smote through the narrow windows in the walls. Out through the ruined gate she sped, and down the rough path towards the river.
Nor was she so speedy that she reached the river before the barge had foamed up to the strand, where a narrow waterway wound to a wooden quay. Rosamunde, halting under a wind-twisted fir, saw four soldiers moving up the path, bearing upon a bed the figure of a man. Before them, some twenty paces, walked a woman whose face was turned towards the walls of Holy Guard. Rosamunde knew her as she climbed the path, Blanche of the North, even the Duchess.