‘Oh!’ she murmured to herself, ‘would that you were here! Will anything step between us? anything come to keep you and me apart _now_? I cannot think that the end of this story will be all that it should be. And now I shall tremble always, till I see you–and–perhaps even then. Who knows?’ Later in the forenoon, she felt again irresistibly impelled to try once more if her old craft had not come back to her. She took a canvas, and her palette and brushes, and tried to sketch in some representation of the scene which had haunted her ever since she had seen the pencilled words at the foot of the page. Again she opened the book, and again read the words: ‘I am not insensible to the cry of anguish–_il grido di dolore_–which arises from my faithful people in all parts of my kingdom.’ As she drew, her heart beat ever faster and faster. It was a man’s figure that she outlined; the figure of a king, it was intended for–of one who, by nature and by circumstance, was a ruler. Her crayon moved more slowly as she tried to infuse into this figure some of the royalty of bearing and look with which, in her own mind, she invested the form of this ‘deliverer.’ When, after a couple of hours’ diligent drawing, the outline stood out clearly before her, she looked at it, and saw that it was good; it _was_ kingly, dignified; majestic and benevolent too. She had not failed. She was not to be robbed for ever of her old power. Her art had been restored to her. That, she felt, was enough for one day. She had not been aware with what intense eagerness she had longed that she might prevail–that life and skill might be restored to her hand, until, when she at last saw that ‘it was so,’ she broke down, and burst into a passion of tears–but tears which, if stormy at first, soothed and healed in the falling.