She lowered her eyes; her bosom quickened slightly, and the colour ebbed and flowed in her cheeks.
“You should not thank me,” said she. “What I did was done for justice's sake.”
“I have been presumptuous,” I answered humbly, “in conceiving that it might have been for the sake of me.”
“But it was that also,” she answered quickly, fearing perhaps that she had pained me. “It offended me that the Duke should attempt to browbeat you. I took pride in you to see you bear yourself so well and return thrust for thrust.”
“I think your presence must have heartened me,” said I. “No pain could be so cruel as to seem base or craven in your eyes.”
Again the tell-tale colour showed upon her lovely cheek. She began to pace slowly down the gallery, and I beside her. Presently she spoke again.
“And yet,” she said, “I would have you cautious. Do not wantonly affront the Duke, for he is very powerful.”
“A life which I have so much misused that it must ever cry out to me in reproach.”
She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again. Thus we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was placed, with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather. She sank to it with a little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and slightly over her. And now I grew strangely bold.
“Set me some penance,” I cried, “that shall make me worthy.”
Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
“A penance?” quoth she. “I do not understand.”
“All my life,” I explained, “has been a vain striving after something that eluded me. Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned and rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro, seeking by penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had succumbed. That shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had done, the signs I believed I had received, were turned to mockery. It was not there that I should save myself. One night I was told so in a vision.”
She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell silent, staring back at her.
Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as never yet they had met it. She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time openly to consider me.