Again she sought Lord L., but not to ask This time his counsel in the thankless task She could no more make good, the task of living. He was too mere a stranger to her grieving, Her needs, her weakness. All her woman's heart Was in rebellion at the idle part He played in her sad life, and needed not Mere pity for a pain to madness wrought. She did not ask his sympathy. She said Only that she was weary as the dead, And needed change of air, and life, and scene: She wished to go where all the world had been-- To Paris, Florence, Rome. She could not die And not have seen the Alps and Italy. Lord L. had tried all Europe, and knew best Where she could flee her troubles and find rest. Such was her will. Lord L., without more goad, Prepared for travel--and they went abroad. I will not follow here from day to day Griselda's steps. Suffice it if I say She found her wished-for Paris wearisome, Another London and without her home, And so went on, as still the fashion was, Some years ago, e'er Pulman cars with gas And quick night flittings had submerged mankind In one mad dream of luggage left behind, By the Rhone boat to Provence. This to her Seemed a delicious land, strange, barren, fair, An old-world wilderness of greys and browns, Rocks, olive-gardens, grim dismantled towns, Deep-streeted, desolate, yet dear to see, Smelling of oil and of the Papacy. Griselda first gave reins to her romance In this forgotten corner of old France, Feeding her soul on that ethereal food, The manna of days spent in solitude. Lord L. was silent. She, as far away Saw other worlds which were not of to-day, With cardinals, popes, Petrarch and the Muse. She stopped to weep with Laura at Vaucluse, Where waiting in the Mistral poor Lord L., Who did not weep, sat, slept and caught a chill; This sent them southwards on through Christendom, To Genoa, Florence, and at last to Rome, Where they remained the winter.