For how could she tell him that which she knew must be the motive of
any treacherous act Francbois might perform; how tell him that which,
she thought, he should have divined for himself? She could not tell
Bevill that Francbois declared him to be his rival, the obstacle to
his hopes with her; that he believed that they had met often in
England, that they loved one another.
But still she thought he should have understood. Meanwhile, though
this divination came not, as yet, to Bevill's mind, there sprang
suddenly to it a light, a revelation.
He saw, he understood, that it was his safety she alone
considered--not her own.
He recognised the nobility of her character, the self-sacrifice she
was ready to make in being willing to quit a place where, if the
discomfort was great, her personal security was almost certain, so
that by acting thus the one chance of his safety, the one road to
it--if any such road existed--was open to him. And in recognising
this he also recognised another thing--a thing that he had not dreamt
of, not suspected in himself, but that he could no longer doubt
possessed him. He understood that, from the first, he had been drawn
towards this girl not more by her beauty and stately grace than by
her womanly attributes, her lack of thought for herself, her noble
self-respect and her personification of honest, upright, English
womanhood. This English womanhood, valiant, self-contained, was
fearless through consciousness of lacking every attribute that could
attract evil towards her; strong because girt with woman's strongest
armour--innocence.
And now he knew that, day by day, he had been gradually, though
unperceived by himself, learning to love her; he knew that as she had
said those words. "I do so fear for you," and not only had said them,
but had testified to their truth by the anxiety for his safety that
she showed, he was no longer beginning, learning to love her, but
_had_ learned to love her.
"What shall I do?" he asked himself as they sat on this summer day in
her host's garden. "How act? Now is no time to tell her what has
sprung full grown into my heart. Honour bids me be silent, and I must
obey. No word, no plea, must come from me until she stands free and
unfettered in her, in our, land. I must draw no interest, no credit,
from having placed myself here in a position of danger on her behalf,
'specially since the danger is not to her--but to me. That may procure
me her esteem and regard; it must not be used as a means whereby to
win her love."
Therefore he did not repeat his question as to why Francbois should
wish to betray him, but, when he had concluded the above reflections,
contented himself with saying:
"I must not, will not, go hence. Since you aver there is no danger to
you here, so shall there be none to me. I promised the Earl that I
would enable you to quit Liége; seeing there is no need nor call for
you to go, I remain also."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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