d calculated, as he
believed, every combination of obstacle which his projects might have
to encounter; but one, it now seemed, he had entirely omitted, the
influence of woman. Why was he here? Why was he not away? Why had he
not departed? The reflection was intolerable; it seemed to him even
disgraceful. The being who would be content with nothing less than
communing with celestial powers in sacred climes, standing at a tavern
window gazing on the moonlit mudbanks of the barbarous Thames, a river
which neither angel nor prophet had ever visited! Before him, softened
by the hour, was the Isle of Dogs! The Isle of Dogs! It should at least
be Cyprus!

The carriages were announced; Lady Bertie and Bellair placed her arm in
his.

CHAPTER XXII.

_The Crusader Receives a Shock_

TANCRED passed a night of great disquiet. His mind was agitated, his
purposes indefinite; his confidence in himself seemed to falter. Where
was that strong will that had always sustained him? that faculty of
instant decision which had given such vigour to his imaginary deeds?
A shadowy haze had suffused his heroic idol, duty, and he could not
clearly distinguish either its form or its proportions. Did he wish to
go to the Holy Land or not? What a question? Had it come to that? Was
it possible that he could whisper such an enquiry, even to his midnight
soul? He did wish to go to the Holy Land; his purpose was not in the
least faltering; he most decidedly wished to go to the Holy Land, but he
wished also to go thither in the company of Lady Bertie and Bellair.

Tancred could not bring himself to desert the only being perhaps in
England, excepting himself, whose heart was at Jerusalem; and that
being a woman! There seemed something about it unknightly, unkind and
cowardly, almost base. Lady Bertie was a heroine worthy of ancient
Christendom rather than of enlightened Europe. In the old days, truly
the good old days, when the magnetic power of Western Asia on the Gothic
races had been more puissant, her noble yet delicate spirit might have
been found beneath the walls of Ascalon or by the purple waters of
Tyre. When Tancred first met her, she was dreaming of Palestine amid her
frequent sadness; he could not, utterly void of all self-conceit as
he was, be insensible to the fact that his sympathy, founded on such
a divine congeniality, had often chased the cloud from her brow and
lightened the burthen of her drooping spirit. If she were sad