"I do not ask that you should plan battles, lead forlorn charges, nor sit down in your tent to study the destruction of walled towns. You can be our leader without all that, for he who leads men's souls commands men's bodies and lives in men's hearts. Therefore, I bid you to come with us and help us, for although a sword is better at need than a hundred words, yet there are men at whose single word a thousand swords are drawn like one." "No, Madam," said the abbot, his even lips closing after the words, with a look of final decision, "I will not go with you. First, because I am unfit to be a leader of armies, and secondly, because such life as there is left in me can be better used at home than in following a camp. Lastly, I would that this good fight might be fought soberly and in earnest, neither in the fever of a fanatical fury nor, on the other hand, lightly, as an amusement and a play, nor selfishly and meanly in the hope of gain. My words are neither deep, nor learned, nor well chosen, for I speak as my thoughts rise and overflow. But thanks be to Heaven, what I say rouses men to act rather than moves them to think. Yet it is not well that they be over-roused or stirred when a long war is before them, lest their heat be consumed in a flash of fire, and their strength in a single blow. You need not a preacher, but a captain; not words but deeds. You go to make history, not to hear a prophecy." "Nevertheless," said the Queen, "you must go with us, for if the spirit you have called up sinks from men's memories, our actions will be worse than spiritless. You must go." "I cannot." "Cannot? But I say you must." "No, Madam--I say no." For a long time the two sat in silence facing each other, the Queen confident, vital, fully roused to the expression of her will; Bernard, on the other hand, as fully determined to oppose her with all the fervent conviction which he brought to every question of judgment or policy. "If we fall out among ourselves," said Eleanor, at last, "who shall unite us? If men lose faith in the cause before them and grow greedy of the things that lie in their way, who shall set them right?" The abbot shook his head sorrowfully and would not meet her eyes, for in this he knew that she was right. "When an army has lost faith," he said, "it is already beaten. When Atalanta stooped to pick up the golden apples, her race was lost." "As when love dies, contempt and hatred take its place," said Eleanor, as if in comment. "Suck love is of hell," said Bernard, looking suddenly into her face, so that she faintly blushed. "Yes," she retorted scornfully, "for it is the love of man and wife." The holy man watched her sadly and yet keenly, for he knew what she meant, and he foresaw the end. "Lucifer rebelled against law," he said. "I do not wonder," said the Queen, with a sharp laugh. "He would have rebelled against marriage. Love is the true faith--marriage is the dogma." She laughed again.