Bertrand of Brittany by Warwick Deeping

THE dawn was streaming up when Bertrand came down the stairway from the upper room in the tower and paused in the gallery leading to the solar. A bitter watch had it been for Bertrand, a long vigil with the relentless past condemning him with the thoughts of his own heart. He had knelt there, stunned and awed, with Arletta's blood dyeing the floor and her white face shining on him from amid the dark wreathings of her hair. There had been no horror in her death for him, only a great revulsion of remorse, a moving of all his manhood. He had looked on the dead face hating himself, haunted by memories-memories poignant as a mother's tears. How good the girl had been to him, even when he had been rough and petulant! She had often gone hungry that he might eat. And now he had killed her-killed her with his great blundering penitence that had trampled on her love in its struggles to be free. He had blood on his hands-the blood of the woman whose bosom had pillowed his head in sleep.

Bertrand stood in the gallery, miserable and cold, watching the dawn come up over the thickets of Broceliande. There was no joy for him in that splendor of gold, for the eyes of Arletta would open with the dawn no more. Ah, God, what a brute he had been, what a self-righteous coward! He had taken this woman's heart, broken it, and thrown it back to her in this awakening of his, of which he had been so proud. Bertrand gripped the window-rail and stared at the moat. A glory of gold was streaming over the forest, and the black water beneath him caught the splendor and seemed glad.