Let us return then to the fainting Periander; and although he weeps neither as a sinner nor as a penitent, he sheds the tears of a jealous lover; but he lacks not one who will both excuse his tears, and even wipe them away, as Auristella did, who had thrown him into this condition more from artifice than honestly meaning all she said. He at length recovered his senses, and hearing steps in the apartment, he turned his head and saw beside him Ricla and Constance, who were come to visit Auristella. He seized the opportunity of departing, not finding words wherewith to answer his mistress, so he retired to consider the advice she had given him. Sinforosa, meanwhile, was longing to hear the sentence that had been pronounced in the court of love, on the first hearing of her suit; and she would, doubtless, have been first to visit Auristella instead of Ricla and Constance, but that she was prevented doing so, by receiving a message from the king her father, who required her immediate presence. She went to him, and found him alone. Polycarp made her sit near him; and, after a few moments' silence, in a low voice (as if he feared being overheard) he said, "Daughter, although thy tender youth has probably kept thee in ignorance of that passion which is called love; and although my maturer age might well preserve me from its jurisdiction, yet nature will sometimes deviate from its regular course, lighting up the flame of love in the bosom of a mere girl, and consuming with its blaze the dry heart of the old man."