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 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.

I heard her to the end, or almost to the end:  for while she drew near to conclude, and while I stood grinding my teeth upon the certainty that the whole plot—­from the kidnapping to the spreading of the slanders—­had been Master Domenico’s work, and his only, the air thudded with a distant dull concussion:  whereat she broke off, lifting her head to listen.