“There is a spell on me, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert. “I almost think yon besotted skeleton spoke truth, and that the reluctance with which I part from thee hath something in it more than is natural.⁠—Fair creature!” he said, approaching near her, but with great respect⁠—“so young, so beautiful, so fearless of death! and yet doomed to die, and with infamy and agony. Who would not weep for thee?⁠—The tear, that has been a stranger to these eyelids for twenty years, moistens them as I gaze on thee. But it must be⁠—nothing may now save thy life. Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish. Forgive me, then, and let us part, at least, as friends part. I have assailed thy resolution in vain, and mine own is fixed as the adamantine decrees of fate.”

“Thus,” said Rebecca, “do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild passions. But I do forgive thee, Bois-Guilbert, though the author of my early death. There are noble things which cross over thy powerful mind; but it is the garden of the sluggard, and the weeds have rushed up, and conspired to choke the fair and wholesome blossom.”

“Yes,” said the Templar, “I am, Rebecca, as thou hast spoken me, untaught, untamed⁠—and proud, that, amidst a shoal of empty fools and crafty bigots, I have retained the preeminent fortitude that places me above them. I have been a child of battle from my youth upward, high in my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing them. Such must I remain⁠—proud, inflexible, and unchanging; and of this the world shall have proof.⁠—But thou forgivest me, Rebecca?”

“As freely as ever victim forgave her executioner.”

“Farewell, then,” said the Templar, and left the apartment.