ou walk,
your white teeth when you smile, and the dimple on your cheek.
Yourself, too, the Jean within that body, with your courage, your
pride, your scorn, your temper, your fierce desires, your fiery
jealousies, your changing moods. And your passion, with its demands,
with its surrenders, with its caresses, with its pain. You, Jean
Cochrane, as you are and as you shall be, with all my heart and with
all my body, with all my loyalty, next to that I give my king, I love
you, Jean." He leaned towards her as he spoke, and all the passion
that was hidden behind his girl face and Court manner--the passion
that had made him the most daring of soldiers, and was to make him the
most successful of leaders--poured from his eyes, from his lips, from
his whole self, like a hot stream, enveloping, overwhelming and
captivating her. Strong as she was in will and character, she could
not speak nor move, but only looked at him, with eyes wide open, from
the midst of the wealth of her golden hair.

[Illustration: She could not speak nor move, but only looked at him.
Page 166.]

"Do I not know the sacrifice I am asking if you should consent to be
my wife? Jean, I will tell you true: not for my love even and your
bonnie self will I lie or palter with my faith. You will have to come
to me, I will not go to you; you will have to break with the Covenant,
leave your father's house and face your mother's anger, and be
denounced by the godly, up and down the land, because ye married the
man of blood and the persecutor of the saints. I will not change, ye
understand that? No, not for the warm, soft clasp of your white arms
round my neck; no, not though ye tie me with the meshes of your
shining hair. I judge that ye will not be a temptress, but I give you
warning I am no Sampson, in his weakness to a woman's witchery, when
it comes to my faith and my duty. I will love you night and day as a
man loveth a woman, but I will do what I am told to do, even though it
be against your own people, till the evil days be over. And it may be,
Jean, that I shall have to lead a hopeless cause. Ye must be willing
to give me to death without a grudge, and send me with a kiss to serve
the king.

"Can you do this"--and now his voice sank almost to a whisper, and he
stretched his hands towards her--"for the sake of love, for love's
sake only, for the sight of my face, for the touch of my lips, for the
clasp of my arms, for the service of my heart, for myself? If