He broke off abruptly, seeing Von Glauben’s eyes fixed steadfastly upon him, and the colour deepened in his cheek. Then he gave a slight laugh. “I tell you, Von Glauben, this little love-affair--this absurd toy-marriage is not worth thinking about. Humphry leaves the country at the end of this month,--he will remain absent a year,--and at the expiration of that time we shall marry him in good earnest to a royally-born bride. Meanwhile, let us not trouble ourselves about this sentimental episode, which is so rapidly drawing to its close.” The Professor bowed respectfully and retired. But not to sleep. He had a glowing picture before his eyes,--a picture he could not forget, of the Crown Prince and Gloria standing with arms entwined about each other under the rose-covered porch of Ronsard’s cottage saying “Good-night” to him, while Ronsard himself, his tranquillity completely restored, and his former fears at rest, warmly shook his hand, and with a curious mingling of pride and deference thanked him for all his friendship--‘all his goodness!’ “And no goodness at all is mine,” said the meditative Professor, “save that of being as honest as I can to both sides! But there is some change in the situation which I do not quite understand. There is some new plan on foot I would swear! The Prince was too triumphant--Gloria too happy--Ronsard too satisfied! There is something in the wind!--but I cannot make out what it is!” He pondered uneasily for a part of the night, reflecting that when he had returned from The Islands in the King’s yacht, he had met the Prince’s own private vessel on her way thither, gliding over the waves, a mere ghostly bunch of white sails in the glimmering moon. He had concluded that it was under orders to embark the Prince for home again in the morning; and yet, though this was a perfectly natural and probable surmise, he had been unable to rid himself altogether of a doubtful presentiment, to which he could give no name. By degrees, he fell into an uneasy slumber, in which he had many incompleted dreams,--one of which was that he found himself all alone on the wide ocean which stretched for thousands of miles beyond The Islands,--alone in a small boat, endeavouring to row it towards the great Southern Continent that lay afar off in the invisible distance,--where few but the most adventurous travellers ever cared to wander. And as he pulled with weak, ineffectual oars against the mighty weight of the rolling billows, he thought he heard the words of an old Irish song which he remembered having listened to, when as quite a young man he had paid his first and last visit to the misty and romantic shores of Britain.