Whatever the alarm, it was destined suddenly to pass away. While Caroline was already secretly putting her heart into mourning for her husband the news was suddenly brought that George was safe and sound in Helvoetsluis. He had been compelled to return, and there he had to remain weather-bound. He wrote to the Queen a long, tender, and impassioned love-letter--like the letter of a youthful lover in whose heart the first feeling on an unexpected escape from death is the glad thought that he is to look once again on the fair face of his sweetheart. George really had a gift for love-letter writing, the only literary gift which he seems to have possessed. It is impossible to read the letters from Helvoetsluis without believing that they were written under the inspiration of genuine emotion. Their style might well raise over again that interesting subject of speculation--whether it is in the power of man to be in love with two or more women {76} the same time. King George was unquestionably in love with Madame Walmoden: while he was near her he could think of nothing else. He was in Hanover, feasting and dancing, always in Madame Walmoden's company, while his daughter was lying on what seemed at one time like to be her death-bed at the Hague. It is not a very far cry from Hanover to the Hague, but it never occurred to George to entertain the idea of leaving Madame Walmoden to go and pay a visit to his daughter. Out of Madame Walmoden's presence his thoughts appear to have flown at once back to his wife. To her he wrote, not in the mere language of conjugal affection and sympathy, but with the passionate raptures of young love itself. The Queen was immensely proud of this letter, although she took care to say that she believed she was not unreasonably proud of it. She showed it to Walpole and to Hervey, who both agreed that they had a most incomprehensible master. Walpole was a very shrewd and keen-sighted man, but he did not understand Queen Caroline or her feeling towards her husband. He had told Hervey more than once that he did not know whether the Queen hated more her son or her husband; and, indeed, he said there was good reason why she should hate the husband the more of the two, seeing that he had treated her so badly while she had been all devotion to him. The love of a woman is not always governed by a sense of gratefulness. There are women whose hearts are like the grape, and give out their best juices to him who tramples on them. If anything is certain in all the coarse and dreary story of that Court, it is that Queen Caroline adored her husband--that she was too fond of her most filthy bargain. [Sidenote: 1737--A fickle, inconsiderate Prince]