Eternity was a big, sad word in that connection of expediency, and tragic, because it could never be more than a one-sided compact. She had nothing but a temporal gift to offer him in exchange for it, but she lent to that what grace she could through the pathetic sweetness of its giving. He deserved only kindness of her; _he_ had had no voice, no hand, no knowledge, in the deed which had been his gain. And what a little gain, after all! It seemed hardly worth all this plotting, all this wreck of lives and ruin of souls to end on such a paltry acquisition. It were as though a party of musicians had fought for the possession of a delicate instrument, with which in the meantime they had been belabouring one another. It is said that on the bridal evening, when left alone together in their room, the young wife turned to her husband with some expression of this thought upon her lips. She had been looking from the window, into the blown star-lit darknesses of a night such as that which had imprinted for ever its death-shadow upon her soul, and the emotion of that piteous memory was alive and terrible in her. She looked into his face, an intense and appealing sadness in her own, and clasping her hands as if in prayer, spoke to him: “I will try to be to you a good wife, during the three years we shall remain together.” “How?” he answered, amazed: “what is this arbitrary limit?” “I do not know,” she said, sighing: “only something tells me it will not be longer.” What had he to do, then, but, in his exultant happiness, laugh to scorn her fears, take her to his impassioned arms, declare the immortality of their union? She was overwrought, he said, oppressed by fancies born of change and recent sorrow. In the creative fire of love all those dismal spectres would pass consumed, leaving new life and hope to spring from out their ashes. She shook her head; but he would not be gainsaid. The confidence of the autocrat was in him; he read in her mood nothing but the diffidence of a young soul temporarily overweighted by its own aggrandisement. There is no reason for supposing that he knew anything whatever about the real state of affairs; there is every reason for surmising that the truth would have been jealously withheld from him. He never once, in after months, alluded to Tiretta, or appeared to have kept in mind the part played by that romantic agent of his in the sequence of events. It is possible that, even had a hint of the truth been conveyed to him, he would have scorned to attach any consequence to the story. The _cicisbeo_ of his day was almost as formal an institution in society as her ladyship’s pet lap-dog or _confessore_; sometimes, even, he was solemnly inducted in family conclave; and not seldom he was quite the most harmless member of the domestic circle. The first condescension of an archduke and destined emperor was sufficient to sweep all such ephemeral fancies into oblivion.