And relates the returning of his Grace of Osmonde from FranceThere were in this strange nature,depths so awful and profound that it was not to be sounded or to be judged as others were.But one thing could have melted or caused the unconquerable spirit to bend,and this was the overwhelming passion of love--not a slight,tender feeling,but a great and powerful one,such as could be awakened but by a being of as strong and deep a nature as itself,one who was in all things its peer.
"I have been lonely--lonely all my life,"my Lady Dunstanwolde had once said to her sister,and she had indeed spoken a truth.
Even in her childhood she had felt in some strange way she stood apart from the world about her.Before she had been old enough to reason she had been conscious that she was stronger and had greater power and endurance than any human being about her.Her strength she used in these days in wilful tyranny,and indeed it was so used for many a day when she was older.The time had never been when an eye lighted on her with indifference,or when she could not rule and punish as she willed.As an infant she had browbeaten the women-servants and the stable-boys and grooms;but because of her quick wit and clever tongue,and also because no humour ever made her aught but a creature well worth looking at,they had taken her bullying in good-humour and loved her in their coarse way.She had tyrannised over her father and his companions,and they had adored and boasted of her;but there had not been one among them whom she could have turned to if a softer moment had come upon her and she had felt the need of a friend,nor indeed one whom she did not regard privately with contempt.
A god or goddess forced upon earth and surrounded by mere human beings would surely feel a desolateness beyond the power of common words to express,and a human being endowed with powers and physical gifts so rare as to be out of all keeping with those of its fellows of ordinary build and mental stature must needs be lonely too.
She had had no companion,because she had found none like herself,and none with whom she could have aught in common.Anne she had pitied,being struck by some sense of the unfairness of her lot as compared with her own.John Oxon had moved her,bringing to her her first knowledge of buoyant,ardent youth,and blooming strength and beauty;for Dunstanwolde she had felt gratitude and affection;but than these there had been no others who even distantly had touched her heart.
The night she had given her promise to Dunstanwolde,and had made her obeisance before his kinsman as she had met his deep and leonine eye,she had known that 'twas the only man's eye before which her own would fall and which held the power to rule her very soul.
She did not think this as a romantic girl would have thought it;it was revealed to her by a sudden tempestuous leap of her heart,and by a shock like terror.Here was the man who was of her own build,whose thews and sinews of mind and body was as powerful as her own--here was he who,had she met him one short year before,would have revolutionised her world.
In the days of her wifehood when she had read in his noble face something of that which he endeavoured to command and which to no other was apparent,the dignity of his self-restraint had but filled her with tenderness more passionate and grateful.
"Had he been a villain and a coward,"was her thought,"he would have made my life a bitter battle;but 'tis me he loves,not himself only,and as I honour him so does he honour me."Now she beheld the same passion in his eyes,but no more held in leash:his look met hers,hiding from her nothing of what his high soul burned with;and she was free--free to answer when he spoke,and only feeling one bitterness in her heart--if he had but come in time--God!why had he not been sent in time?
But,late or early,he had come;and what they had to give each other should not be mocked at and lost.The night she had ended by going to Anne's chamber,she had paced her room saying this again and again,all the strength of her being rising in revolt.She had been then a caged tigress of a verity;she had wrung her hands;she had held her palm hard against her leaping heart;she had walked madly to and fro,battling in thought with what seemed awful fate;she had flung herself upon her knees and wept bitter scalding tears.
