The Quest. Justus Miles Forman

let me do this!" he cried out. "Let me do it, for both our sakes, for yours and for mine. It is for your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace again, bring back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake too, a little. It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so many have failed, if I can bring back your brother to you—or at least, discover what has become of him—I shall be able to come to you with less shame for my—unworthiness."

      He looked down upon her with eager burning eyes, and, after a little, the girl rose to face him. She was very white and she stared at him silently.

      "When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life without value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it and you knew it too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry, and what a brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper place—what great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give that all up and I hadn't anything to offer in its place—nothing but love.

      "My queen, give me a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring back your brother or news of him, I can come to you without shame and ask you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that you will know that I can succeed in other things. You will be able to trust me. You'll know that I can climb. It shall be a sort of symbol. Let me go!"

      The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.

      "Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a Ste. Marie! Now at last I know why one cannot but love you. You're the knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a ghost out of the past when men rode in armour with pure hearts seeking the Great Adventure.

      "Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise! Give this up in time. It is a beautiful thought and I love you for it, but it is madness—yes, yes, a sweet madness, but mad nevertheless! What possible chance would you have of success? And think! Think how failure would hurt you—and me! You must not do it, Ste. Marie."

      "Failure will never hurt me, my queen," said he; "because there are no hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort of splendid fervour upon it. It was as if it shone. The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realise that the knightly spirit of those gallant long-dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little afraid with an almost superstitious fear.

      She put out her hands upon the man's shoulders and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.

      "Oh, madness! madness!" she said, watching his face.

      "Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.

      And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time she sighed, shaking her head, and said she—

      "Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say no. You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest. How can I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this sacrifice, if I let you give your time and your strength to this almost hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within certain limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like, or for three months or six, or even a year, but not for more than that. If he is not found in a year's time we shall know that—we shall know that he is dead, and that—further search is useless. I cannot say how I—— Oh, Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you indeed! And I have called you idle! I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter to me to think that I have said those things."

      "They were true, my queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He took the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and kissed it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once, uneasily, and when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.

      "I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the portières yonder. It must have been a servant."

      "Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your happiness and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your face again, my queen."

      "Oh, that!" she cried, "that too?"

      "I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If I fail, I lose you. That is understood too. But if I succeed——"

      "Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"

      "Then," said he, "I shall come to you and I shall feel no shame in asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me some little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be buried in obscurity—lost to the world."

      "I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh yes, I am ashamed." The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a beautiful flush, and it had softened and it seemed to quiver between a smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leant close to him holding by his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She whispered to him—

      "Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to me!"

      Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks, and she was pale again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast.

      So he bowed to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of the house.