The mere thought that he could love the Queen, or could have believed that he loved her for one instant, seemed ten thousand times worse than his boyish love of Beatrix had once seemed, when he had supposed that there was no means of setting aside the bar of affinity; and it was right that he should think so. But though temptation is not sin, he made it that, and accused himself; for it was manifest that the merest passing thrill of the blood, such as he had felt on that night in Vezelay, and now again, must be an evil thing, since it had brought about such a great result in a dangerous moment. These were small things, and nice distinctions, that a strong man should dwell on them and bruise his heart for its wickedness. But they were not small if to neglect them meant the eternity of torture that awaited him who looked upon his neighbour's wife to covet her. There were among the nobles who had taken the Cross not a few to whom the law seemed less rigid and perdition less sure, and Eleanor herself gave her sins gentle names; but the Englishman was old-fashioned, and even the good Abbot of Sheering had been struck by his literal way of accepting all beliefs, in the manner of a past time when the world had trembled at the near certainty of the Last Judgment, expiating its misdeeds by barefooted pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and its venial faults by cruel macerations of the flesh. Gilbert, therefore, looked upon all bodily weariness and suffering and privation which he chanced to encounter on the march as so much penance to be borne cheerfully because it should profit his soul; and while the young blood coursed in his veins, and youth's bright lights danced in his eyes, the cold spirit of the ascetic fought against the warm life toward an end which the man felt rather than saw, and of which the profound melancholy would have appalled him, could he have realized it. As month followed month, though his strength increased upon him under much labour, and though his cheeks were tanned by sunshine and weather, the broad forehead grew whiter under his cap, and more thoughtful, and his eyes were saddened and his features more spiritual; also, while he longed daily to draw his sword and strike great blows at unbelievers for faith's sake and to the honouring of the Holy Cross, the rough fighting instinct of his people, that craved to see blood for its redness and to take the world for love of holding it, no longer awoke suddenly in him, like hunger or thirst, at the wayward call of opportunity. He could not now have plucked out steel to hew down men, as he had done on that spring morning among the flowers of the Tuscan valley, only because it was good to see the dazzling red line follow the long quick sword-stroke, and to ride weight at weight to overthrow it, swinging the death-scythe through the field of life. He wanted the cause and the end now, where once he had desired only the deed, and he had risen another step above the self that had been.