"
But she put out a hand to check me. "O friend," she said sadly,
"will you never understand? For the great faith you pay me I shall
go thankfully all my days: but the faith that should answer it I
cannot give you. . . . Ah, there lies the cruelty! You are able to
trust, and I can never trust in return. You can believe, but I
cannot believe. I have seen all men so vile that the root of faith
is withered in me. . . . Sir, believe, that though everything that
makes me will to thank you must make me seem the more ungrateful, yet
I honour you too much to give you less than an equal faith.
I am your slave, if you command. But if you ask what only can honour
us two as man and wife, you lose all, and I am for ever degraded."
I stepped back a pace. "O Princess," I said slowly, "I shall never
claim your faith until you bring it to me. . . . And now, let all
this rest for a while. Take up your story again and tell me the
story to the end."
So in the darkness, seated there upon the millstone with her gun
across her knees, she told me all the story, very quietly:--How at
the last she had been found in the house in Brussels by Marc'antonio
and Stephanu and fetched home to the island; how she had found there
her brother Camillo in charge of Fra Domenico, his tutor and
confessor; with what kindness the priest had received her, how he had
confessed her and assured her that the book of those horrible years
was closed; and how, nevertheless, the story had crept out, poisoning
the people's loyalty and her brother's chances.
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