Page 370 - A Knight of the White Cross

"I, too, have filled out," she said, with a smile. "I was a thin girl then -- all
corners and angles. No, I don' t want any compliments, of which, to tell you

the truth, I am heartily sick. And so," she went on in a softer tone, "you
have actually brought my gage home! Oh, Sir Gervaise," -- and her eyes

filled with tears -- "my cousin has told me! How could you have been so
foolish as to remain voluntarily in captivity, that you might recover the
gage a child had given you?"

"Not a child, Lady Claudia. A girl not yet a woman, I admit; yet it was not

given in the spirit of a young girl, but in that of an earnest woman. I had
taken a vow never to part with it, as you had pledged yourself to bestow no
similar favour upon any other knight. I was confident that you would keep

your vow; and although in any case, as a true knight, I was bound to
preserve your gift, still more so was I bound by the thought of the manner

in which you had presented it to me."

"But I could not have blamed you -- I should never have dreamt of blaming

you," she said earnestly, "for losing it as you did."

"I felt sure, Lady Claudia, that had it been absolutely beyond my power to
regain it you would not have blamed me; but it was not beyond my power,
and that being so had I been obliged to wait for ten years, instead of two, I

would not have come back to you without it. Moreover, you must
remember that I prized it beyond all things. I had often scoffed at knights of

an order like ours wearing ladies' favours. I had always thought it absurd
that we, pledged as we are, should thus declare ourselves admirers of one
woman more than another. But this seemed to me a gage of another kind; it

was too sacred to be shown or spoken of, and I only mentioned it to Caretto
as he cross questioned me as to why I refused the offer of ransom; and

should not have done so then, had he not been present when it was
bestowed. I regarded it not as a lightly given favour, the result of a passing
fancy by one who gave favours freely, but as a pledge of friendship and as a

guerdon for what I had done, and therefore, more to be honoured than the
gifts of a Republic freed from a passing danger. Had you then been what

you are now, I might have been foolish enough to think of it in another
light, regardless of the fact that you are a rich heiress of one of the noblest