“Why did he ask you to do so?”

“Because—­believing us to be what we really are, Philippa, tried and true friends—­he thought I should have some influence over you.”

“Clever duke!” she said.  “Norman, are you well versed in modern poetry?”

He looked up in blank surprise at the question—­it was so totally unexpected.

“In modern poetry?” he repeated.  “Yes, I think I am.  Why, Philippa?”

“I will tell you why,” she said, turning her beautiful face to him.  “If you will be patient, I will tell you why.”

She was silent for a few minutes, and then Lord Arleigh said: 

“I am patient enough, Philippa; will you tell me why?”

The dark eyes raised to his had in them a strange light—­a strange depth of passion.

“I want to know if you remember the beautiful story of Priscilla, the Puritan maiden,” she said, in a tremulous voice—­the loveliest maiden of Plymouth?”

“You mean the story of Miles Standish,” he corrected.  “Yes, I remember it, Philippa.”

“That which a Puritan maiden could do, and all posterity sing her praises for, surely I—­a woman of the world—­may do without blame.  Do you remember, Norman, when John Alden goes to her to do the wooing which the stanch soldier does not do for himself—­do you remember her answer?  Let me give you the verse—­

    “’But, as he warmed and glowed in his simple and eloquent language,
    Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,
    Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter,
    Said in a tremulous voice, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?"’”

The sweet musical voice died away in the starlight, the wind stirred the crimson roses—­silence, solemn and deep, fell over Lord Arleigh and his companion.  Philippa broke it.

“Surely you, in common with all of us, admire the Puritan maiden, Norman?”

“Yes, I do admire her,” he answered; “she is one of my favorite heroines.”

“So she is of mine; and I love her the more for the womanly outburst of honest truth that triumphed over all conventionality.  Norman, what she, the ‘loveliest maiden in Plymouth,’ the beloved of Miles Standish, said to John Alden, I say to you—­’Why don’t you speak for yourself?’”

There was infinite tenderness in his face as he bent over her—­infinite pain in his voice as he spoke to her.

“John Alden loved Priscilla,” he said, slowly—­“she was the one woman in all the world for him—­his ideal—­his fate, but I—­oh Philippa, how I hate myself because I cannot answer you differently!  You are my friend, my sister, but not the woman I must love as my wife.”

“When you urged me a few minutes since to marry your friend, you asked me why I could not love him, seeing that he had all lovable qualities.  Norman, why can you not love me?”

“I can answer you only in the same words—­I do not know.  I love you with as true an affection as ever man gave to woman; but I have not for you a lover’s love.  I cannot tell why, for you are one of the fairest of fair women.”