Domnei | Page 8

him a horror. A horror, a horror! a thing too pitiful for hell!"
Perion turned away from her, groaning. He flung himself into a chair.
He screened his eyes as if before some physical abomination.
The girl kneeled close to him, touching him.
"My dear, my dear! then slay for me this other Perion of the Forest."
And Perion laughed, not very mirthfully.
"It is the common usage of women to ask of men this little labour,
which is a harder task than ever Hercules, that mighty-muscled king of
heathenry, achieved. Nay, I, for all my sinews, am an attested weakling.
The craft of other men I do not fear, for I have encountered no
formidable enemy save myself; but that same midnight stabber
unhorsed me long ago. I had wallowed in the mire contentedly enough
until you came.... Ah, child, child! why needed you to trouble me! for
to-night I want to be clean as you are clean, and that I may not ever be.
I am garrisoned with devils, I am the battered plaything of every vice,

and I lack the strength, and it may be, even the will, to leave my mire.
Always I have betrayed the stewardship of man and god alike that my
body might escape a momentary discomfort! And loving you as I do, I
cannot swear that in the outcome I would not betray you too, to this
same end! I cannot swear--Oh, now let Satan laugh, yet not unpitifully,
since he and I, alone, know all the reasons why I may not swear! Hah,
Madame Melicent!" cried Perion, in his great agony, "you offer me that
gift an emperor might not accept save in awed gratitude; and I refuse
it." Gently he raised her to her feet. "And now, in God's name, go,
madame, and leave the prodigal among his husks."
"You are a very brave and foolish gentleman," she said, "who chooses
to face his own achievements without any paltering. To every man, I
think, that must be bitter work; to the woman who loves him it is
impossible."
Perion could not see her face, because he lay prone at the feet of
Melicent, sobbing, but without any tears, and tasting very deeply of
such grief and vain regret as, he had thought, they know in hell alone;
and even after she had gone, in silence, he lay in this same posture for
an exceedingly long while.
And after he knew not how long a while, Perion propped his chin
between his hands and, still sprawling upon the rushes, stared hard
into the little, crackling fire. He was thinking of a Perion de la Forêt
that once had been. In him might have been found a fit mate for
Melicent had this boy not died very long ago.
It is no more cheerful than any other mortuary employment, this
disinterment of the person you have been, and are not any longer; and
so did Perion find his cataloguing of irrevocable old follies and
evasions.
Then Perion arose and looked for pen and ink. It was the first letter he
ever wrote to Melicent, and, as you will presently learn, she never saw
it.
In such terms Perion wrote:

"Madame--It may please you to remember that when Dame Mélusine
and I were interrogated, I freely confessed to the murder of King
Helmas and the theft of my dead master's jewels. In that I lied. For it
was my manifest duty to save the woman whom, as I thought, I loved,
and it was apparent that the guilty person was either she or I.
"She is now at Brunbelois, where, as I have heard, the splendour of her
estate is tolerably notorious. I have not ever heard she gave a thought
to me, her cat's-paw. Madame, when I think of you and then of that
sleek, smiling woman, I am appalled by my own folly. I am aghast by
my long blindness as I write the words which no one will believe. To
what avail do I deny a crime which every circumstance imputed to me
and my own confession has publicly acknowledged?
"But you, I think, will believe me. Look you, madame, I have nothing to
gain of you. I shall not ever see you any more. I go into a perilous and
an eternal banishment; and in the immediate neighbourhood of death a
man finds little sustenance for romance. Take the worst of me: a
gentleman I was born, and as a wastrel I have lived, and always very
foolishly; but without dishonour. I have never to my knowledge--and
God judge me as I speak the truth!--wronged any man or woman save
myself. My dear, believe me! believe me, in spite of reason! and
understand that my adoration and misery and unworthiness when