I was silent. She moved away petulantly, crying,

"You're all so ready to call on G.o.d to forgive! Is forgiveness G.o.d's only? Will none of you forgive for yourselves? Or are you so righteous that you can't do what G.o.d must?"

I sprang up and came to her.

"Forgive?" I cried in a low voice. "Ay, I'll forgive. Don't talk of forgiveness to me. I came to love."

"To love? Now?" Her eyes grew wide in wonder, amus.e.m.e.nt, and delight.

"Yes," said I.

"You loved the gem; you'd love the pebble? Simon, Simon, where is Madame your mother, where my good friend the Vicar? Ah, where's your virtue, Simon?"

"Where yours shall be," I cried, seizing and covering her hands in mine.

"Where yours, there mine, and both in love that makes delight and virtue one." I caught a hand to my lips and kissed it many times. "No sin comes but by desire," said I, pleading, "and if the desire is no sin, there is no sin. Come with me! I will fulfil all your desire and make your sin dead."

She shrank back amazed; this was strange talk to her; yet she left her hand in mine.

"Come with you? But whither, whither? We are no more in the fields at Hatchstead."

"We could be again," I cried. "Alone in the fields at Hatchstead."

Even now she hardly understood what I would have, or, understanding, could not believe that she understood rightly.

"You mean--leave--leave London and go with you? With you alone?"

"Yes--alone with your husband."

She pulled her hand away with a jerk, crying, "You're mad!"

"May be. Let me be mad, and be mad yourself also, sweetheart. If both of us are mad, what hurt?"

"What, I--I go--I leave the town--I leave the Court? And you?--You're here to seek your fortune!"

"Mayn't I dream that I've found it?" And again I caught her hand.

After a moment she drew nearer to me; I felt her fingers press mine in tenderness.

"Poor Simon!" said she with a little laugh. "Indeed he remembers Cydaria well. But Cydaria, such as she was, even Cydaria is gone. And now I am not she." Then she laughed again, crying, "What folly!"

"A moment ago you didn't call it folly."

"Then I was doubly a fool," she answered with the first touch of bitterness. "For folly it is, deep and black. I am not--nay, was I ever?--one to ramble in green fields all day and go home to a cottage."

"Never," said I. "Nor will be, save for the love of a man you love. Save for that, what woman has been? But for that, how many!"

"Why, very few," said she with a gentle little laugh. "And of that few--I am not one. Nay, nor do I--am I cruel?--nor do I love you, Simon."

"You swear it?"

"But a little--as a friend, an old friend."

"And a dear one?"

"One dear for a certain pleasant folly that he has."

"You'll come?"

"No."

"Why not? But in a day neither you nor I would ask why."

"I don't ask now. There's a regiment of reasons." Her laugh burst out again; yet her eyes seemed tender.

"Give me one."

"I have given one. I don't love you."

"I won't take it."

"I am what I am."

"You should be what I would make you."

"You're to live at the Court. To serve the Duke of Monmouth, isn't it?"

"What do I care for that? Are there no others?"

"Let go my hand--No, let it go. See now, I'll show you. There's a ring on it."

"I see the ring."

"A rich one."

"Very rich."

"Simon, do you guess who set it there?"

"He is your King only while you make him such."

"Nay," she cried with sudden pa.s.sion, "I am set on my course." Then came defiance. "I wouldn't change it. Didn't I tell you once that I might have power with the King?"

"Power? What's that to you? What's it to any of us beside love?"

"Oh, I don't know anything about your love," she cried fretfully, "but I know what I love--the stir, and the frowns of great ladies, and the courting of great lords. Ah, but why do I talk? Do we reason with a madman?"

"If we are touched ever so little with his disease."

She turned to me with sparkling eyes; she spoke very softly.