She stood a moment wavering and uncertain; their eyes were riveted on each other in a strange spiritual attraction--her soft lips were a little relaxed from their gravity as she steadfastly regarded him. She was embarrassed, conscious, and very pale; but he drank in gratefully the wonder and shy worship of those pure eyes,--and waited. Suddenly she sprang to him and closed her arms about his neck, kissing him with simple and loving tenderness. “I do forgive! Oh, I do forgive!” she murmured; “Because I love you, my darling--because I love you! Whatever you wish I will do for your love’s sake--believe me!--but I am frightened just now!--it is as if I did not know you--as if someone had taken you suddenly a long way off! Give me a little time to recover my courage!--and to know”--here a faint smile trembled on her beautiful curved mouth--“to know,--and to _feel_,--that you are still my own!--even though the world may try to part you from me!--still my very own!” The warmth of passionate feeling in her face flushed it into a rose-glow that spread from chin to brow,--and clasping her to his breast, he gave her the speechless answer that love inscribes on eyes and lips,--then, keeping his arm tenderly about her, he led her gently into the path through the pinewood, which wound down to their favourite haunt by the sea. The moonlight had now increased in brilliancy, and illumined the landscape with all the opulence, splendour and superabundance of radiance common to the south,--the air was soft and balmy, and one great white cloud floating lazily under the silver orb, moved slowly to the centre of the heavens,--the violet-blue of night falling around it like an imperial robe of state. The two youthful figures passed under the pine-boughs, which closed over them odorously in dark arches of shadow, and wended their slow way down to the seashore, from whence they could see the Royal yacht lying at anchor, every tapering line of her fair proportions distinctly outlined against the sky, and all her masts shining as if they had been washed with silver dew; and the Heir-Apparent to a throne was,--for once in the history of Heir-Apparents,--happy--happy in knowing that he was loved as princes seldom or never are loved,--not for his power, not for his rank, but simply for himself alone, by one of the most beautiful women in the world, who,--if she knew neither the ways of a Court, nor the wiles of fashion,--had something better than either of these,--the sanctity of truth and the strength of innocence. Réné Ronsard, coming back from his pleasurable duties as host and chairman to his fishermen-friends, found the cottage deserted, and smiled, as he sat himself down in the porch to smoke, and to wait for the lover’s return.