Charles Reade

“ The princess withdrew her hand slowly from Gerard's wrist.
Yet as it passed lightly over his arm it seemed to linger a moment at parting.
“You fear the daggers of my kinsmen,” said she, half sadly, half contemptuously.
“No more than I fear the bodkins of your women,” said Gerard haughtily. “But I fear God and the saints, and my own conscience.”
“The truth, Gerardo, the truth! Hypocrisy sits awkwardly on thee. Princesses, while they are young, are not despised for love of God, but of some other woman. Tell me whom thou lovest; and if she is worthy thee I will forgive thee.” ”

“ O promise.”
“I promise,” said Gerard, sobbing.
“But look on this picture instead. Forgive me; I am but a woman. I could not bear my face to lie a foul thing in thy memory. Nay, I must have thee still think me as fair as I was true. Hast called me an angel once or twice; but be just! did I not still tell thee I was no angel, but only a poor simple woman, that whiles saw clearer than thou because she looked but a little way, and that loves thee dearly, and never loved but thee, and now with her dying breath prays thee indulge her in this, thou that art a man.” ”

“ Torment thyself no more about this Gerard, who is not. As for me, I am Brother Clement, whom Heaven hath sent to thee this day to comfort thee, and help thee save thy soul. Thou last made me thy confessor, I claim, then, thine obedience.”
“Oh, yes,” sobbed the penitent.
“Leave this pilgrimage, and instant return to Rome. Penitence abroad is little worth. There where we live lie the temptations we must defeat, or perish; not fly in search of others more showy, but less lethal. Easy to wash the feet of strangers, masked ourselves, Hard to be merely meek and charitable with those about us.” ”

“ He may refuse to come nigh me; but certes he will not deny a poor woman, who loved him once, her lines of betrothal. How can she go without them into any honest man's house?”
“I'll get them you if they are in Holland,” said Luke.
“They are as like to be in Rome,” replied Margaret.
“Let us begin with Holland,” observed Luke prudently.
The slave of love was furnished with money by his soft tyrant, and wandered hither and thither, Coopering, and carpentering, and looking for Gerard. “I can't be worse if I find the vagabone,” said he, “and I may be a hantle better.” ”

“ Perhaps something in his deep and patient sigh touched a tender chord in that ungoverned creature; or perhaps the time had come for one passion to ebb and another to flow. The princess sank languidly into a seat, and the tears began to steal rapidly down her cheeks.
“Alas! alas!” said Gerard. “Weep not, sweet lady; your tears they do accuse me, and I am like to weep for company. My kind patron, be yourself; you will live to see how much better a friend I was to you than I seemed.”
“I see it now, Gerardo,” said the princess. “Friend is the word! the only word can ever pass between us twain. ”

“ Paul, what a milksop!”
“Tush, Martin!” cried Margaret reproachfully: then she wreathed her arms round Gerard, and comforted him with the double magic of a woman's sense and a woman's voice.
“Sweetheart!” murmured she, “you forget: you went not a step out of the way to harm him, who hunted you to your death. You fled from him. He it was who spurred on you. Then did you strike; but in self-defence and a single blow, and with that which was in your hand. Malice had drawn knife, or struck again and again. How often have men been smitten with staves not one but many blows, yet no lives lost! ”

“ No matter. A year of penance will, Dei gratia, restore me to my calm. My poor Margaret, I seem cruel: yet I am kind: 'tis best we part; ay, this moment.”
“Part, Gerard? Never: we have seen what comes of parting. Part? Why, you have not heard half my story; no, nor the tithe, 'Tis not for thy mere comfort I take thee to Gouda manse. Hear me!”
“I may not. Thy very voice is a temptation with its music, memory's delight.”
“But I say you shall hear me, Gerard, for forth this place I go not unheard.”
“Then must we part by other means,” said Clement sadly. ”

“ Catherine saw she was not happy, and said to her, “Your boy is gone from you. I would not live alone all my days if I were you.”
“He is more alone than I,” sighed Margaret.
“Oh, a man is a man, but a woman is a woman. You must not think all of him and none of yourself. Near is your kirtle, but nearer is your smock. Besides, he is a priest, and can do no better. But you are not a priest. He has got his parish, and his heart is in that. Bethink thee! Time flies; overstay not thy market. ”

“ Oh, let us on.”
“Nay, Margaret,” said Gerard. “I fear not man's vengeance, thanks to Martin here and this thick wood: only Him I fear whose eye pierces the forest and reads the heart of man. If I but struck in self-defence, 'tis well; but if in hate, He may bid the avenger of blood follow me to Italy—to Italy? ay, to earth's remotest bounds.” ”

“ But when I speak of matters that are out of sight, my words they are small, and the thing it was big; now thy words be as big or bigger than the things; art a good limner with thy tongue; I have said it; and for a saint, as ready with hand, or steel, or bolster—as any poor sinner living; and so, shall I tell thee which of all these things thou hast described draws me to Cologne?”
“Ay, Denys.”
“Thou, and thou only; no dead saint, but my living friend and comrade true; 'tis thou alone draws Denys of Burgundy to Cologne?”
Gerard hung his head. ”

“ I have long had my doubts that you blew the flame betwixt Gerard and your father, and set that old rogue, Ghysbrecht, on. And now, here are Gerard's own written words to prove it. You have driven your own flesh and blood into a far land, and robbed the mother that bore you of her darling, the pride of her eye, the joy of her heart. But you are all of a piece from end to end. When you were all boys together, my others were a comfort; but you were a curse: mischievous and sly; and took a woman half a day to keep your clothes whole: for why? work wears cloth, but play cuts it. ”

“ To sit and see a beloved face come back from the grave to the world, to health and beauty, by swift gradations; to see the roses return to the loved cheek, love's glance to the loved eye, and his words to the loved mouth—this was Margaret's—a joy to balance years of sorrow. It was Gerard's to awake from a trance, and find his head pillowed on Margaret's arm; to hear the woman he adored murmur new words of eloquent love, and shower tears and tender kisses and caresses on him. He never knew, till this sweet moment, how ardently, how tenderly, she loved him. He thanked his enemies. ”

“ The poor woman sighed and rocked herself.
“And must be the one to bring it thee all smiling and smirking? I could kill myself for't. Death spares none,” she sobbed. “Death spares none.”
Gerard staggered against the window sill. “But He is master of death,” he groaned. “Or they have taught me a lie. I begin to fear there is no God, and the saints are but dead bones, and hell is master of the world. My pretty Margaret; my sweet, my loving Margaret. The best daughter! the truest lover! the pride of Holland! the darling of the world! It is a lie. Where is this caitiff Hans? ”