And then in a moment he saw and understood. The wind had fallen, the sky was full of stars: they laughed and twinkled above the twinkling city. He was looking from a window of St. James’s Palace across the Mall---- What had happened? What had been affecting him a moment ago? He breathed a prayer of fervid thanksgiving to Heaven for his quick emergence from that terrific shadow--called down by what? He believed he penetrated the cause. It was only yesterday that the _pourparlers_ for his marriage had been begun; and was he so inhuman, or so superhuman, that, unlike all other men, he might experience no shock, no temporary unbalance of reason, in the immediate prospect of that tremendous change? Nay, was not the prospect more distracting for him than for most? seeing that no sentiment warmer than duty--duty to his people, duty to his succession--coloured its cold inevitability. He had heard of men, though bond-slaves to love, killing themselves in their inability to face that more lifelong bondage. What wonder that, in his case, a contract so based on policy should have terrified his reason in the thought? Well--he was well now, he was well. The loveless lot of kings? That had been the chimera of a fancy momentarily diseased. No love for kings? He laughed softly to himself, and, crossing his arms on the sill, leaned down his face into them. And then instantly a dream came to him. The stars of the sky--first one, then another, then dripping streams of them--descended from their high places and, enshrining themselves in crystal, became the lamps of the city. Faster and faster they poured, until he was treading a very milky-way of radiance. He could hardly see his path for the brightness as he walked--for, yes, he was walking! Half dazzled, with the glowing smile of all things reflected on his face, he pushed his way through the golden mist. It was jewelled and spangled everywhere with glittering thoughts; one might hardly know it for the London of one’s daily experience. He remembered when he had first encountered this transformation--he, a serious, well-intentioned young prince, resolute, in his sober, unimaginative way, to justify his election before the face of Heaven--and how of a sudden some spirit exquisite beyond conception had usurped in him the place of duty. No, not usurped, but sanctified. Self-fulfilled through love, his debt to Heaven and his country would find him tenfold strengthened in its discharge.