He never doubted her love--not for one instant. He pictured her, like himself, waiting, waiting for the deliverance that would not come, for the reunion that hard fate debarred them. She would yield herself to him, she had said, when hope was gone; he had but to call and she would fly to hide herself in his breast. So it was hope that parted them; yet how was he to banish hope and still regain her? It was upon hope he lived. Once he wove this sorrowful exaltation of his into a rhapsody of love and loss, the sense of which may be rendered in the following lines: “Once for a thousand years ’twas Spring; Love reigned, and Death stood still; The world paused at its burgeoning Of may and daffodil. “Like buds from spiring lilies thrown, Time blossomed over Time; It seemed, ere yet its sweets were blown, That earth to heaven would climb-- “It seemed, all wrath, all hate were fled, And sole bright sense remained; That something evil had been sped, And some new knowledge gained. “Then no fruits were, but endless bliss Of Love that knew no sting, And laughed him on from kiss to kiss, Like bees a’honeying. “The rains were gone, the skies were blue, Nor any cloud had birth Save but to drop a gentle dew Like balm upon the earth. “Nor grief nor grievance ere could be In fields so fair bedight; And, above, the fields of eternity Soft blossomed through the night. “And there the moon, the witch of dreams, Her web of slumber wrought, Till in its soft and silken beams Ten thousand stars were caught. “And there the moon with shining eyes Her silken web prepared, To catch the stars like fireflies, And kiss them, being snared. “O! sweet it was in woods and bowers, And no fear to conceive; But meal of honey gave the flowers And dew the cups of eve. “O! sweet it was. O! sweet it was. No sweeter could befall, While love the end was and the cause-- God knows what changed it all! “A kiss too much, too full a sigh-- The vessel brimméd o’er; And the creaking wain of Destiny Moved onwards as before.” And so he lingered on amidst the golden ruins of his paradise, wondering, as if his brain were stupefied, over what he had done to bring it thus in a moment about his ears. He was not permitted to wonder long. Whether it were that she soon realised the hollowness of his attentions to herself; or the real peril of his continued presence in the neighbourhood; or, which is most probable, that she was wearied with the whole business, the marquise took steps to make his further stay in the palace impossible to him. Once resolved, she went about the business after her uncompromising fashion. She opened upon him one night without relevance or preface: “Like Cupid, monsieur, you are everyone’s match-maker, it seems, and nobody’s gallant. And yet sometimes I wonder.” “Over what, madame?” “Why as to there being possibly a subtler purpose in your advocacy than you let appear.”