night's name) was sitting, and thinking of war, and
his departure from home; sitting there in a very grave, almost a stern
mood, that Ella, his betrothed, came in, gay and sprightly, in a humour
that Lawrence often enough could little understand, and this time liked
less than ever, yet the bare sight of her made him yearn for her full
heart, which he was not to have yet; so he caught her by the hand, and
tried to draw her down to him, but she let her hand lie loose in his, and
did not answer the pressure in which his heart flowed to hers; then he
arose and stood before her, face to face, but she drew back a little, yet
he kissed her on the mouth and said, though a rising in his throat almost
choked his voice, 'Ella, are you sorry I am going?' 'Yea,' she said,
'and nay, for you will shout my name among the sword flashes, and you
will fight for me.' 'Yes,' he said, 'for love and duty, dearest.' 'For
duty? ah! I think, Lawrence, if it were not for me, you would stay at
home and watch the clouds, or sit under the linden trees singing dismal
love ditties of your own making, dear knight: truly, if you turn out a
great warrior, I too shall live in fame, for I am certainly the making of
your desire to fight.' He let drop his hands from her shoulders, where
he had laid them, and said, with a faint flush over his face, 'You wrong
me, Ella, for, though I have never wished to fight for the mere love of
fighting, and though,' (and here again he flushed a little) 'and though I
am not, I well know, so free of the fear of death as a good man would be,
yet for this duty's sake, which is really a higher love, Ella, love of
God, I trust I would risk life, nay honour, even if not willingly, yet
cheerfully at least.' 'Still duty, duty,' she said; 'you lay, Lawrence,
as many people do, most stress on the point where you are weakest;
moreover, those knights who in time past have done wild, mad things
merely at their ladies' word, scarcely did so for duty; for they owed
their lives to their country surely, to the cause of good, and should not
have risked them for a whim, and yet you praised them the other day.'
'Did I?' said Lawrence; 'well, in a way they were much to be praised, for
even blind love and obedience is well; but reasonable love, reasonable
obedience is so far better as to be almost a different thing; yet, I
think, if the knights did well partly, the ladies did altogether ill: for
if they had faith in their lovers, and did this