Alas, of all the dainty things in the world, too delicate in their nature to be twice tasted, none is more evanescent than this first worship; this reverence of the lover for her who seems rather angel than woman, framed of a clay too heavenly for the coarse touch of passion. Once before, in the hay-field, he had tried to save her, and he had failed. This time--oh, he was happy when he thought of it--he would save her. And he fell into a dream of a life--impossible in those days, however it might have been in the times of Amadis of Gaul, or Palmerin of England--devoted secretly to her service and her happiness; a beautiful, melancholy dream of unrequited devotion, attuned to the solemnity of the woodland night with its vast spaces, its mysterious rustlings and gurgling waters. Those who knew Roger best, and best appreciated his loyal nature, would have deemed him sleepless for the Lieutenant's sake--whose life hung in the balance; or tormented by thoughts of the Abbess's position. But love is of all things the most selfish; and though Roger ground his teeth once and again as Vlaye's breach of faith occurred to him, his thoughts were quickly plunged anew in a sweet reverie, in which she had part. The wind blew from her to him, and he fancied that some faint scent from her loosened hair, some perfume of her clothing came to him. It was her voice that at last and abruptly dragged him from his dream. "Are you not ashamed of me?" she whispered. "Ashamed?" he cried, leaping in his seat. "Once--twice, I have failed," she went on, her voice trembling a little. "Always some one must take my place. Bonne first, and now your other sister! I am a coward, Monsieur Roger. A coward!" "No!" he said firmly. "No!" "Yes, a coward. But you do not know," she continued in the tone of one who pleaded, "how lonely I have been, and what I have suffered. I have been tossed from hand to hand all my life, and mocked with great names and great titles, and been with them all a puppet, a thing my family valued because they could barter it away when the price was good--just as they could a farm or a manor! I give orders, and sometimes they are carried out, and sometimes not--as it suits," bitterly. "I am shown on high days as Madonnas are shown, carried shoulder high through the streets. And I am as far from everybody, as lonely, as friendless," her voice broke a little, "as they! What wonder if I am a coward?" "You are tired," Roger answered, striving to control his voice, striving also to control a mad desire to throw himself at her feet and comfort her. "You will feel differently to-morrow. You have had no food, mademoiselle." "You too?" in a voice of reproach. He did not understand her, and though he trembled he was silent.