Had not Edgar himself broken every law of God and man to gratify
his passion for a woman? Not a woman like this! Never would Edgar look
on her until he, Athelwold, had obeyed her and his own heart and made
her his for ever! And what would come then! He would not consider it--he
would perish rather than yield her to another!
That was how the question came before him, and how it was settled,
during the long sleepless hours when his blood was in a fever and his
brain on fire; but when day dawned and his blood grew cold and his brain
was tired, the image of Edgar betrayed and in a deadly rage became
insistent, and he rose desponding and in dread of the meeting to come.
And no sooner did he meet her than she overcame him as on the previous
day; and so it continued during the whole period of his visit, racked
with passion, drawn now to this side, now to that, and when he was most
resolved to have her then most furiously assaulted by loyalty, by
friendship, by honour, and he was like a stag at bay fighting for his
life against the hounds. And every time he met her--and the passionate
words he dared not speak were like confined fire, burning him up
inwardly--seeing him pale and troubled she would greet him with a smile
and look which told him she knew that he was troubled in heart, that a
great conflict was raging in him, also that it was on her account and
was perhaps because he had already bound himself to some other woman,
some great lady of the land; and now this new passion had come to him.
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