me:
and now I saw things which I did not understand and--and I became
used to them before ever guessing that these were the things those
vile words had meant. The women were pretty, you see . . . and
merry, and kind to me at first. Before God I never dreamed that I
was looking on harm--not at first--but afterwards, when it was too
late. The people who had put me there ceased to send money, and
being a strong child and willing to work, at first I was put to make
the women their chocolate, and carry it up to them of a morning, and
so, little by little, I came to be their house-drudge. I had lost
all news of Camillo. For hours I have hunted through the streets of
Brussels, if by chance I might get sight of him . . . but he was
lost. And I--O Cavalier, have pity on me!"

"Wife," said I, standing before her, "why have you told me this?
Did I not say to you that I have seen your face and believe, and no
story shall shake my belief? . . . Nay, then, I am glad--yes, glad.
Dear enough, God knows, you would have been to me had I met you, a
child among these hills and ignorant of evil as a child.
How much dearer you, who have trodden the hot plough-shares and come
to me through the fires! . . . See now, I could kneel to you, O
queen, for shame at the little I have deserved."

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