_Mait_. Nay, you have told the rest. I would have worshipped; but one day there came a look from those beautiful eyes, when I met them suddenly, with a gaze that sought the mystery of their beauty,--a single look, and in an instant the drooping lash had buried it forever; but I knew, ere it fell, that the world of her young being was all mine already. Another life had been forever added unto mine; a whole creation; yet, like Eden's fairest, it but made another perfect; a new and purer _self_; and in it grew the heaven, and the fairy-land of my old dreams, lovelier than ever. You have loved yourself, Andre, else I should weary you. _Andre_. Not a bit the more do I understand you though. You talk most lover-like; that's very clear, yet I must say I never saw the part worse played. Why, here's your ladye-love, this self-same idol of whom you rave, at this moment perchance, breathing within these woods,--years too--two mortal years it must be, since you have seen her face; and yet--you stand here yet, with folded arms;--a goodly lover, on my word! _Mait_. Softly, Sir! you grace me with a title to which I can lay no claim. Lover I _was_, may be. I am no lover now, not I--not I; you are right; I would not walk to that knoll's edge to see the lady, Sir. _Andre_. Well, I must wait your leisure, I see. _Mait_. And yet, the last time that we stood together here, her arm lay on mine, my promised wife. A few days more, and by _my_ name, all that loveliness had gone. There needed only that to make that tie holy in all eyes, the holiest which the universe held for us; but needed there that, or any thing to make it such in ours. Why, love lay in her eye, that evening, like religion, solemn and calm.--We should have smiled then at the thought of any thing in height or depth, ending, what through each instant seemed to breathe eternity from its own essence;--we were one, _one,_--that trite word makes no meaning in your ear.--to me, life's roses burst from it; music, sunshine, Araby, should image what it means; what it meant rather, for it is over. _Andre_. What was it, Maitland? _Mail_. Oh,--well,--she did not love me; that was all. So far my story has told the seeming only, but ere long the trial came, and then I found it _was_ seeming, in good sooth. The Rebellion had then long been maturing, as you know; but just then came the crisis. It was the one theme everywhere. Of course I took my king's part against these rebels, and at once I was outraged, wronged beyond all human bearing. Her mad brother, her's, _her's_ what a world of preciousness, Andre, that little word once enshrined for me; and still it seems like some broken vase, fragrant with what it held. _Andre_. And ever with that name, a rosy flash Paints, for an instant, all my world. Nay, 'tis a little love-poem of my own; go on, Maitland.