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After the dispute with Tancred had been settled, the latent rivalry of Richard and Philip broke out in a quarrel about the Princess Adelais, whom her brother Philip insisted that Richard should espouse, in conformity with their betrothment, now that his father no longer lived to oppose their union.
She seated herself upon a semicircular marble bench, and laughed for no apparent reason, and contentedly waited what Dame Luck might send. Circe, Colchian Medea, Viviane du Lac, were their favorite analogues; and what old romancers had fabled concerning these ladies they took to be the shadow of which Adelais Vernon was the substance.
Presently the Sieur d'Arnaye sighed, rather ostentatiously; and Adelais laughed, and demanded the cause of his grief. "Mademoiselle," he said, his English had but a trace of accent, "I am afflicted with a very grave malady." "What is the name of this malady?" said she. "They call it love, mademoiselle." Adelais laughed yet again and doubted if the disease were incurable.
The time that's left me now to be at home with you and my father is none too long. What is Adelais Cameron to me, when all my world is here?" "Maurice," said Stephen again, in a voice that sounded strained and hard, like the voice of an old man trying to be young; "you're a dear affectionate fellow, and as things are, perhaps this is all very well.
Man, but you startled me!" Now Adelais ran to the Frenchman, clinging to him the while that she told of Roger's tricks. And d'Arnaye's face set mask-like. "Monsieur," he said, when she had ended, "you have wronged a sweet and innocent lady. As God lives, you shall answer to me for this." "Look you," Roger pointed out, "this is none of your affair, Monsieur Jackanapes.
And when it was told, she said nothing for a few minutes, but only stood motionless and surprised, without a blush or tremor or sigh, and he, looking earnestly into her fair uplifted face, saw with unutterable pain that there was no response there to the passionate yearning of his own. "Adelais," said he, presently, "you do not love me?"
"Phil," she said, as her brother came softly into the room and sat beside her, "take me back with you to the sea-side. I am weary of living always here in Kensington. It is only London after all." "My dearest," he answered, kindly, "if that is all you wish for, it shall certainly be. But, Adelais, is there nothing more than this that troubles you?
There is a shadow in your eyes and on your lips that used not to be there, and all day long you sit by yourself and muse in silence; and you weep too at times, Adelais, when you fancy none is by to see you. Tell me, sister mine, for the sake of the love that is between us, and for the sake of our father and mother who are dead, what cloud is this that overshadows you so?"
But in the third year, when the autumn days grew darker, and the sun set redder in the sea, and people began to talk again of Christmas, Adelais called her brother one evening and said: "Philip, I have been here very long, and I know that nothing more on earth can ever make me well again now. You will not refuse me the last request I shall make you, Phil?
But as he stayed on from week to week at Mrs Lamertine's house, Philip saw that the pale lips and cheeks of Adelais grew paler and thinner continually, that the brown eyes greatened in the dark sockets, and that the fragile limbs weakened and sharpened themselves more and more, as though some terrible blight, like the curse of an old enchantment or of an evil eye, hung over the sweet girl, withering and poisoning all the life and the youth in her veins.
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