The anguish of my disappointment was great; that this artful little beauty should have fooled me, and trifled with a love so honest and so true, so honourable and so pure as mine; for I loved, and in the rash blindness of my boyish love would have married her, when I believed her to be but a nameless and penniless soubrette, and thus, for her sake, would have trampled under foot all the inborn prejudice of race and name, all that family pride and tradition which were ever the second creed of a Scottish gentleman. I could neither separate nor analyse all the fierce and bitter thoughts that grew up within me, but an overwhelming sense of deception and disappointment were uppermost; for in the brocaded lady, sparkling with jewels, with necklaces of diamonds and strings of pearls, mounted on a pawing steed of spotless white, surrounded by dukes and princes, guards, counts, and cavaliers--in Marie Louise of Lorraine, I could no longer realise Nicola, the gentle, timid, and loving Nicola, of my pleasant journey from Paris to the banks of the Meurthe--she with whom I had passed so strange a night among the rocks in the forest of Champagne. While deceiving me as to her name and rank, she had doubted my honour and trifled with my love: a bitter conviction and a humiliating one. Then other memories came, and I could scarcely doubt that I had won an interest in her heart when I rehearsed over and over again our conversations, all of which were graven in my mind, especially that which took place in the forest near St. Michel. When I dwelt on her accents, and the expression of her blue eyes and softly-feminine face, when she spoke to me then, and on similar occasions, could I doubt that she loved me? Yes, I did doubt now, and in the anguish of that doubt I could have wept. I recalled the joy she had expressed on learning that Duke Charles (but Duke Charles was her father) and Count Pappenheim were at Nanci; I remembered, too, how merrily she seemed to be conversing with the Count, as their brilliant pageant passed through the public square. These were doubtless 'trifles light as air,' yet they were heavy as cannon-shot to me. 'It is enough!' I exclaimed, with growing anger; 'I have been befooled; this girl never loved me; and if she did, what would her love avail me now?' At that moment the rattle of kettle-drums, and sound of trumpets and trampling of horses, announced the return of the Duke, whose train rode into the echoing quadrangle. I knew that Nicola was there; but instead of looking from the windows of the corridor, I placed my hands upon my ears, and strove to shut out the sounds of triumph that tortured me. CHAPTER XLVIII. CHARLES IV.