When the king's letter arrived, requiring in kindly terms Lorenzo's presence at Amboise, that young nobleman, though able to rise from his bed, was by no means sufficiently recovered to take a long journey, or even to mount his horse. He assured the king in his reply, however, that the moment he could ride he would get out on the journey; and, to tell the truth, he longed not a little to leave the castle at Chaumont. He himself felt that his residence there was becoming somewhat dangerous to him. The memory of Leonora could not be banished from his mind. Disappointment, indignation, and even a certain feeling of contempt, which the indifference he believed her to have shown had generated, could not extinguish entirely that first-born, fairy love, which, once it has possession of the heart, rarely goes out entirely. But yet Eloise de Chaumont was, as the poet says, "beautiful exceedingly"--of a very different character from Leonora, more fair, more laughing, with less soul in the look, less depth and intensity of mind in the eyes, but still very beautiful. A sort of intimacy too, of a nature difficult to describe, had sprung up during her long attendance upon him; they called each other by their Christian names, and, although no word of love had ever passed between them, it was evident to everyone around that Eloise, knowing that her loveliness and wealth gave her the choice of almost any man in France, looked upon Lorenzo as her own, and would have been as much surprised as grieved to think there was a doubt of her becoming his wife. Lorenzo, for his part, could not but be grateful, could not but admire. One thing, however, proved that he did not love--he saw in her many faults. He wished she was not so light, so frivolous. He wished he could see some indications of firm character and steadfast principles. "And yet," he thought, "Where I believed they most existed they were the most wanting. What matters it to me whom I wed now? If Eloise can love me, that amounts to the utmost sum of happiness I can now hope for." Nevertheless, when, at the end of another fortnight, he mounted his horse to proceed to Amboise, not a word had passed to bind him to her who had nursed him so kindly. "When will you be back, Lorenzo?" asked Eloise, as she gave him her cheek to kiss at parting. "I know not what the king wishes," replied Lorenzo, "or how long he may detain me--not long, I hope." Those words bound him to nothing in the common eye of the world; but, as he pondered them while riding on his way, he felt that they implied a promise to return as soon as the king left him free to do so. And yet he hesitated, and yet he doubted, and yet he asked himself, "Can she make my happiness, or can I make hers?" "It is well to be off with the old love Before we are on with the new," says an old song, and Lorenzo had reason to regret that he did not apply the maxim it contains to his own heart.