"Hearken before you answer," I continued. "When first I spoke with you on that bloody day at Hastings and you had but just come to womanhood, I loved you and swore to myself that I would die to save you. I saved you and we kissed and were parted. Afterwards I tried to put you out of my heart, knowing that you were set far above me and no meat for such as I, though still for your sake I wooed no other woman in marriage. The years went by and fortune brought us together again, and lo! the old love was stronger than before. I know that I am not worthy of you who are so high and good and pure. Still----" and I stopped, lacking words.
She moved uneasily and the red colour left her cheeks as though she had been suddenly pained.
"Bethink you," she said with a touch of hardness in her voice, "can one who lives the life I live and keeps my company, remain as holy and unstained as you believe? If you would gather such a lily, surely you should seek it in a country garden, not in the reek of London."
"I neither know nor care," I answered, whose blood was all afire. "I know only that wherever you grow and from whatever soil, you are the flower I would pluck."
"Bethink you again; an ugly slug might have smeared my whiteness."
"If so the honest sun and rain will recover and wash it and I am a gardener who scatters lime to shrivel slugs."
"If to this one you will not listen, then hear another argument.
Perchance I do not love you. Would you win a loveless bride?"
"Perchance you can learn of love, or if not, I have enough to serve for two."
"By my faith! it should not be difficult with a man so honest and so well favoured. And yet--a further plea. My cousin Deleroy has cheated you" (here her face hardened), "and I think I am offered to you by my father in satisfaction of his honour, as men who have no gold offer a house or a horse to close a debt."
"It is not so. I prayed you of your father. The loss, if loss there be, is but a chance of trade, such as I face every day. Still, I will be plain and tell you that I risked it with open eyes, expecting nothing less, that I might come near to you."
Now she sat herself down in a chair, covering her face with her hands, and I saw from the trembling of her body that she was sobbing. While I wondered what to do, for the sight wrung me, she let fall her hands and there were tears upon her face.
"Shall I tell you all my story, you good, simple gentleman?" she asked.
"Nay, only two things. Are you the wife of some other man?"
"Not so, though perhaps--once I went near to it. What is the other question?"
"Do you love some other man so that your heart tells you it is not possible that you should ever love me?"
"No, I do not," she answered almost fiercely, "but by the Rood! I hate one."
"Which is no affair of mine," I said, laughing. "For the rest, let it sleep. Few are they that know life's wars who have no scar to hide, and I am not one of them, though in truth your lips made the deepest yonder by the cave at Hastings."
When she heard this she coloured to her brow and forgetting her tears, laughed outright, while I went on:
"Therefore let the past be and if it is your will, let us set our eyes upon the future. Only one promise would I ask of you, that never again will you be alone with the lord Deleroy, since one so light-fingered with a pen would, I think, steal other things."
"By my soul! the last thing I desire is to be alone with my cousin Deleroy."
Now she rose from the chair and for a little while we stood facing each other. Then she very slightly opened her arms and lifted her face towards me.
Thus did Blanche Aleys and I become affianced, though afterwards, when I thought the business over, I remembered that never once did she say that she would marry me. This, however, troubled me little, since in such matters it is what women do that weighs, not what they say. For the rest I was mad with love of her, also both then and as the days went by, more and more did she seem to be travelling on this same road of Love. If not, indeed she acted well.
Within a month we were wed on a certain October day in the church of St. Margaret's at Westminster. Once it was agreed all desired to push on this marriage, and not least Blanche herself. Sir Robert Aleys said that he wished to be gone from London to his estates in Sussex, having had enough of the Court and its ways, desiring there to live quietly till the end; I, being so much in love, was on fire for my bride, and Blanche herself vowed that she was eager to become my wife, saying that our courtship, which began on Hastings Hill, had lasted long enough. For the rest, there was nothing to cause delay. I cancelled Sir Robert's debt to me and signed a deed in favour of his daughter and her offspring, whereof I gave a copy to his lawyer and there was nought else to be done except to prepare my house for her which, with money at command, was easy.
No great business was made of this marriage, since neither his kin nor Sir Robert himself wished to noise it about that his only child, the last of his House, was taking a merchant for her husband to save her and him from wreck. Nor did I, the merchant, wish to provoke talk amongst those of my own station, especially as it was known that I had advanced moneys to these fine folks of the Court. So it came about that few were asked to the ceremony that was fixed for an early hour, and of these not many came, because on that day, although it was but October, a great gale with storms of rain began to blow, the greatest indeed that I had known in my life.
Thus it chanced that we were wed in an almost empty church while the fierce wind, thundering against the windows, overcame the feeble voice of the old priest, so that he looked like one acting in a show without words. The darkness caused by the thick rain was so deep, also, that scarce could I see my bride's lovely face or find the finger upon which I must set the ring.
