H. C. Bailey

“ You forget a lot of things. You forget how I was in that—that camp." She grew pale and shuddered. "And then you came, and you—you—bought me," she said softly.
"And then?" I cried.
"That is all," she answered; and she stood with her head drooping a little.
"Gabrielle! Gabrielle!" I cried; and my arms were round her, and she gave herself up to me as I caught her to my breast; her smiling face, with wet blue eyes, was lifted to mine, and I kissed her.
In the grey stone walls of the garden a wide seat is hewn out, and there we sat together in silence for a long time, hand in hand. ”

“ She put out her hands with a little imploring gesture. " Why will you show me all the black, and nothing else?"
I looked down into her face, and I took her hands in mine.
"I will tell you why," I said quietly. "It is because I put you too high to try to cheat you. If you think me a better man than I am I shall feel I have wronged you. I would have you know the worst, because then I can dare to ask you—if I cheated you I should not dare—to ask you if there is any hope, if there is any chance, you could ever love me." The words came all in a breath.
"Are you showing me the worst side?" ”

“ There was food in the city now; grain that Alva could not wring from the peasantry poured in freely for us, and the burghers knew what a meal meant again. But, away across the plain, Alkmaar was passing into the trouble Breuthe had lately known. There were sixteen thousand men before it now, and there might have been three thousand less. With that thought in my head, I was pacing up and down the garden.
Gabrielle came out of the house: she put her hand up to her eyes to look through the sunlight, standing there by the door, a slim figure clad all in white. ”