thing but my
unstained name, and now that is lost. The last of the Malaspina has
destroyed the good fame of the house, for she knows that I can no
longer pursue her as in former years I should have done. I am old and
sick, and a sinful man. Now, therefore, I must go down disgraced to the
grave, for mine enemy will say I have connived at this, and that to
avoid paying my debt, I have preferred even to give my last jewel to a
beggar, than to the creditor I hated!" Then again this image vanished,
and she now saw herself and her lover pursued on strange roads by an
angry band, Pierre de Gaillac at their head, resolved to claim his
bride from her ravisher. She saw her Jaufret fight with the energy of a
despairing man, and yet at length conquered by numbers, shed his life's
blood on the green grass, and she heard the mocking conqueror laugh,
"So thou enviest me my gains at play, thou player's son; the creditor
reclaims the debt the debtor would have withheld from him!" Then a
deadly shudder passed over her; she thought for a moment that her heart
had ceased to beat. All the joys of her young love seemed crushed by an
icy hand. She knew now that what had appeared to her in her trouble a
way of escape and an immeasurable bliss was a false dream; that she
should but bring death and ruin to both the beings whom she supremely
loved!

"For the love of the Saints!" cried Geoffroy, who felt her cherished
form grow heavy as a lifeless body in his embrace, "come to thyself
again. What fearful thoughts hast thou in thy mind that thus thy lips
move silently as though speaking with the departed? Give me the bridle
and let us turn to life, to liberty. The spirits that hover over those
towers will have no power over thee when once thou art the other side
of this hill. Wilt thou make us both wretched? Wilt thou even--"

He stopped when he saw the stony eyes of his young wife from which
every beam of hope and joy had utterly vanished. But this did not last
long, the convulsion was now over. She gave a deep sigh, turned on him
eyes of yearning love, and said, while endeavouring to smile:

"I have scared thee; forgive me, my beloved. What have we two to fear
from any spirits that may hover over that house and envy us our bliss.
Thou, my husband, and I, thy wife, eternally one, body and soul! But I
have been thinking about our flight, that it is not the will of Heaven;
and if we persisted, Jaufret, against my conscience, we should be
punished