Should he not have pitied her? He who knew what it was to love in vain? Of all women on earth he should have spared _her_; but the devil had entered into him and he saw in this pure, unselfish affection a way to his own object; so she, too, must be sacrificed without remorse. What did it matter? Was _he_ alone to suffer and be trampled under foot? ‘It was good of you, Mistress Hamilton,’ he replied, with a soft glance from his dark eyes, that made her flush and tremble where she stood. ‘Few but yourself would have been so considerate, and I should have valued the kindness as much from _none_. Shall I leave _one_ person at Court to regret me when I am gone?’ ‘More than that,’ she answered, hurriedly, and scarce knowing what she said, ‘there will be no music for us now, at least none worth listening to. The Queen said so herself--and--and--are you not coming back again?’ ‘Never!’ he replied, darkly; and then, seeing her scared and troubled face, adding, with a laugh, ‘Never is a long word, is it not? and who can tell in such a country as this what a few months may bring? But I shall be absent a weary while, Mistress Hamilton, and I cannot bear unkindness from those I love. I would not willingly be forgotten and supplanted by newer faces.’ Her eloquent eyes told him _that_ was impossible, but she dared not trust herself to speak. ‘Will you think of me when I am gone?’ he proceeded, in a lower tone, and pressing nearer his companion’s side. ‘When you are feasting merrily at Holyrood, and enjoying dance and song and revelry, will you not keep one little corner in your heart for the absent who used to do all in his poor power to make your time pass pleasantly, who will be thinking every hour so sadly and longingly of you?’ Even in the midst of her astonished happiness she experienced a shadowy misgiving that it was too good to be real; but she could only reply-- ‘You must think very poorly of us all, Chastelâr, if you imagine we could ever forget you.’ ‘It is not distance that can separate those who care for each other,’ resumed the poet, dreamily; ‘after all, it is thought that unites soul to soul; that sea-bird’s wing would droop ere he had traversed a thousand miles of ocean, and yet twice the distance separates the lover from his mistress no more than a score of yards and a brick wall. He can be with her in spirit, although his body may be at the uttermost end of the earth. Nevertheless, for all this, Mistress Hamilton, it grieves me sore to bid you farewell.’ She could have listened to him for an hour; she loved to hang on his musical accents, and drink in the tones of his rich, southern voice; above all, were such sentiments as these congenial to her own lofty conceptions of an ideal, and her trusting, clinging heart. He was pitiless; he went on speaking low and hurriedly--