"Yes, I have changed," he said slowly. "Perhaps even you cannot guess how much. I could not convey to you how utterly indifferent all the world is to me save only my hope to a little more complete the task God put upon me. Your friendship is all that is left to me. Nothing hath been real since—she—died. I only act and think and go through my days because I believe she would have wished it. I only do this and that because I think—she would have done it. I only keep on because she wished that, even at the last. I only endure to live because I dare to hope she may be somewhere—waiting——" His voice sank so low as to be almost incoherent; Portland could scarcely catch the words. They came to a little hollow beside the path that was filled with spring flowers opening to the dawn, daisies and lilies and tufts of fresh green. The King spoke again. "For the rest, all is dead—here," he lightly touched his heart. "You alone have the power to hurt me, and you should use it tenderly." Portland had meant to resign his position in the King’s household, so intolerable had it become to him, but now restrained himself. "I will serve you till death," he said, with his air of cold, high breeding. "Your Majesty must believe that of me." William gave a little sigh. "What of this Congress at Ryswick?" added Portland, "and your suggestion that I should see M. de Boufflers?" He thought that it would be something of a compromise if he could still continue to serve the King yet get away from the odious van Keppel. "They will never do anything at Ryswick," answered the King wearily. "They fill their time with ceremonies and vexations, and this time a hundred years might find them still arguing there. And I am resolute for peace now as all my life I have been resolute for war. No need to explain my policy to you. We shall never get better terms than France offereth now, and they must not be lost through the intolerable impertinences of Spain, who hath contributed nothing but rigmaroles to the coalition from the first." "I think," said Portland, "I could get some satisfaction from M. de Boufflers." The French Maréchal had formed a friendship with Portland when he had been his prisoner at Huy, after the fall of Namur, and it had recently occurred to William to use this friendship to open negotiations between England and France, regardless of the formal mummeries of the Congress, which seemed to be likely to be as protracted as that held at Nymwegen in ’79.