So the high-hearted lovers followed the way of which Guivric had told them. This way is not to be talked about; but blood was shed in the Delta, and the worm that dies not was imprisoned: and after other appalling happenings, Holden the Brave climbed out rheumatically from the canvas, and gave his hand to Queen Radegonde; and she also stepped from the triangular frame, and entered into life as the mortal woman that Radegonde had been in the old time. § 77 Straightway she recollected her husband and her children and many of her lovers, and the gilded domes of Elphànor's seven proud cities, where now not even a hut was, and all the perfumed wasteful living which Radegonde had known in the old time; and straightway, too, she saw that Holden was a tedious decrepit fellow, well past the love of women. And Holden saw that his Radegonde was a flighty and a rather silly barbarian wench, sufficiently good-looking to be sure, but in no way remarkable. And the two gazed at each other rather forlornly. The queen began to shiver and to whimper. "I never," she said, "I never for one moment was so lonely in my Delta as I am now." Avuncularly he patted her white shoulder. "Do not give way, my dear. We have acted unwisely, and nobody denies it: but do you come out of this draught, and I will get you some clothes and have you baptised; and then I will present you to our young Count Emmerick, and you can entertain yourself, within Christian limits, by making a fool of him." "A vigorous and handsome count would be better than nothing," the fair girl conceded. So this presentation was arranged. And tall Emmerick was infatuated the moment he saw the queen's beguiling innocent young face. Forthwith the high Count of Poictesme proclaimed a banquet: and when all were dancing, Holden returned to the void frame; and he considered that lost tropic garden, bereft now forever of the radiant and gray-eyed slip of womanhood whom he had loved, and who would content his life no more. Guivric came with him: and these two old men kept silence. § 78 "We may deduce that the painter loved her thirteen centuries ago," says Guivric,--"erecting loveliness where there was little to build upon. Thus it is that the brain of man creates women more desirable than may be created by other means: and such women endure. But the women children that have two parents, may endure only a very little longer than may the scant delights a man can get in gardens that bear bitter fruit or else insipid fruit: for these women have no such Delta as had your lost Radegonde, no more than has that dispossessed lean ogling flirt of whom young Emmerick will presently be tiring." Moreover Guivric said: