"Charles," said Hiort, tenderly, as if answering him, "yes, there is yet one help. When on the ground of life one fresh color after another fades,--when existence is now nothing, neither comedy nor tragedy, only a stale show-piece,--still is there one heaven open to man, which shall receive him,--love. Let this close against him, and he is damned forever. Carlos, my Carlos, I could still be happy, for I have seen _Athenais_; but I can be still more unhappy than I am, for she loves me not. In my heart lies this blazing, but continually sharp-cutting diamond, upon which it bleeds as often as it beats." Everywhere now did Roquairol let Linda's image play in. At this crisis, Carlos at first threw his friend into an internal uproar, with the intelligence that Athenais had been selected by his father for _his_ bride, and was coming soon; but he calmed him, when his sister Lilia appeared, by quickly taking her hand, and saying, "This one only do I love." They spoke of the obstacles on the part of old Salera, whom Carlos called a glacier, which bore fruit under no sun, and could not be built upon. "Stand by me, Charles," said Hiort; "think what thou wrotest to me: 'Like two streams will we blend together, and grow, and bear, and dry up together.'"[130] Thus did the three beings mutually understand, bind, elevate each other; all had one end,--their common welfare. Carlos swore eternal rebellion against his father; Hiort, to protect his sister, and cried, "At last the empty cornucopia of Time, which hitherto has given out nothing but hollow sounds, pours out flowers again." "O, the women! How common and commonplace are almost all men! But almost every woman is new." Gaspard said, with a smile, "Women say the reverse of us and themselves." The second act closed in gladness and peace. "_Diablesse!_" cried the Spaniard, and stretched his right hand high in the air. "Fleeting," began the black jay, amid tones of music, "is man, more fleeting is his bliss, but earlier than all dies the friend with his word."