He saw already the glitter of this sword glide through the long darkness; for Idoine had made a vow never to stretch out her hand in the covenant of love below her princely rank. So stood the two beside each other, separate in one heaven, a sun and a moon, divided by an earth. She hastened her departure. Albano thought it not right to accompany her, as he now divined that the gray-clad persons who had beckoned him back were her servants, placed there to guard her solitude. She offered him her hand at the garden-gate, and said, "May you live to be more happy, dear Count; one day I hope to find you again as happy as you ought to make yourself." The touch of the hand, like that of a heavenly one offering itself out of the clouds, streamed through him with a glorified fire from that world where risen ones hover, light and luminous, and the lofty, awe-awakening form inspired his heart. He could not say what he subdued and buried within him, but neither could he say any other cold, disguised word. He knelt down, pressed her hand to his bosom, looked with tears to the starry heaven, and only said, "Peace, all-gracious one!" Idoine turned hastily away, and, after a few swift steps, passed slowly down the little hill into the Prince's garden. A few minutes after, he saw the torches of her carriage fly through the night, in which she loved to brave the danger of travelling. Around the hill it was dark; the evening redness and the evening star had gone down; the earth was a smoke and rubbish-heap of night; a mausoleum of clouds reared itself on the horizon. But in Albano there was a certain incomprehensible gladness, a luminous point in the darkness of the heart; and, as he looked upon the gleaming atom, it spread itself out, became a splendor, a world, a boundless and endless sun. Now he recognized it; it was the real infinite and divine love, which can be still and suffer, because it knows only _one_ good, but not its own. He was rejoiced at having veiled his breast, and at his resolve not to see her again in the city. "So silently," he said, half praying, half aloud, "will I love her forever. Her peace, her bliss, her fair aspiration, shall be ever holy to me, and her form hidden from me, and remote as that of her heavenly sister; but when the battle for right begins, and the tones of music flutter with the banners in the air, and the heart beats more eagerly, to bleed more profusely, then let thy form, O Idoine, hover before me in the heavens, and I will fight for thee; and if, in the tumult, an unknown destroying angel draws the poisoned edge across my breast, then will I hold thee fast in my fainting heart till the earth is to me no more.". He looked round serenely, after this prayer, at the churchyard of the virgin heart; he felt that Liana alone might be permitted to know, and that she would bless it. 138. CYCLE.