‘You will listen to them thus,’ he exclaimed, eagerly. ‘You will allow me to lay at your feet a volume I have long wished, but not dared, to pray you to accept. May I experience this great happiness? Is it a promise?’ She bowed her fair head in acquiescence, and her colour went and came. Queen though she were, Mary Stuart was also a woman to the heart’s core; and it was not in woman’s nature but to experience a tinge of gratification and triumph in an authority so despotic, a dominion so complete as this. Emboldened by the permission, he hurried on:-- ‘I would lay all I have--my fame, my happiness, my life, nay, my very soul--at your Majesty’s feet, and thank and bless you, even did you trample them to dust. O madam! have you not read of such devotion? can you not believe in it? Do you not _know_ that there may exist a love so pure, so holy, so self-denying, that its blessing and its privilege is to give all and ask for nothing in return?’ Again she looked around her, startled and confused, but there were no listeners near. Still the strain of ‘the Purpose’ stole soft and low and soothing on her ear. She resolved she must never hear him speak again like this; but the moments were all the more precious at the time. It would be too unkind to check him harshly now. He was madly in love with her, no doubt; and his punishment would come quite soon enough: meantime, she thought it better to treat the whole affair playfully. ‘I too can write verses,’ said she, with a bright smile. ‘Shall I repeat you a couplet or two I composed to-day? They are not amiss, Chastelâr, at least for a queen! and considering they are in rhyme, they are tolerably true--too true, I fear; the more the pity. Listen, Troubadour, and take a lesson in your own trade; moreover, beseech you, mark the moral, for that is the whole merit of the stave:-- ‘Wild Folly, so the legends tell, Was wedded to a maid, A dusky maid that used to dwell In drowsy summer-shade. ‘Their offspring is a fairy elf, A thing of tricks and wiles; He plays with hearts to please himself, And when they break he smiles. ‘Unpitied pain and toil in vain That little tyrant brings; And those who fain would slip his chain, Must cheat him of his wings. ‘To Cupid’s tortures, you may guess, Each parent lends a part; The chain, the toils, from Idleness, While Folly adds the smart.’ ‘And yet, madam, there are chains that the slave hugs to his bosom,’ answered Chastelâr, gazing on her with looks of imploring affection; ‘there is a labour of love that is sweeter than the profoundest repose; there is a pain that we prize and cherish, clasping it tighter and tighter till it pierces to our hearts, and so we die.’ ‘Such chains I would not lay on _my_ servants,’ said the Queen: ‘such labour I would never impose; such pain I could not bear to inflict.’ He looked up brightly.