“Well, warm dreams, then,” said the maid. “They will make a very forcing-house of one’s bedroom--mademoiselle will see, if she has any love for this plant. It will come to blossom while she slumbers. Or perhaps she would rather I removed it. It is not good, say some people, to breathe in sleep the same air with flowers. They are like sweet-tongued suitors, best shut the other side of the door.” “That will do, Fanchette. You are allowing your tongue too much freedom.” “O, I did not mean to imply anything,” quoth injured innocence. “Your Highness, if you please, is so ready to think the worst of Fanchette. Only what I will venture to say is that, if you are not on the side of M. Tiretta in this business, it will be sensible of you to let me put the basil-pot elsewhere.” “I am not, however, the least troubled with these scruples,” said Isabella courageously. “As you have put it there, it may remain, since its leaves at least smell sweet. And if I find I suffer from its neighbourhood, it will be simple to remove it.” “O, if you ask me, I do not think you will suffer from it!” said the maid, airily pert. “Good-night, Fanchette!” “Good-night, your Highness, and fruitful dreams.” The alcove where the Infanta slept had in it a little dim hanging lamp, which burnt all night. It was enough and no more to betray in shadowy contour the half-visionary sweetness of the face upon the pillow, the rounded shoulder, the waxen hand. She lay, on this night, so still, she hardly seemed to breathe. She was listening, her lips just parted, to the sounds in the great house dying away in the distance one by one. The last door boomed its remote thunder; the step of a sentry passed beneath her window, and attenuated and ceased; a profound stillness reigned everywhere. Then, sitting up, she sat thrilling a moment, and slid softly from her bed. Listening again, as if half fearful of what her own longing might bring upon her, she crept barefooted, in her ghostly night-robe, to the table where her treasure lay, and knelt, and put her arms about it, and buried her face in the fragrant leaves. “My baby,” she whispered--“open, open your pretty eyes, and make me happy. Did I deny you? It was for love’s sake and your father’s, most dear. He would tell you so if he were here.” CHAPTER XIV. CONFESSION