That night, while the sweet flowers slept under the light of the stars, and the little birds rested in the deep shade of the trees--while the night wind whispered low, and the moon sailed in the sky--Philippa L'Estrange, the belle of the season, one of the most beautiful women in London, one of the wealthiest heiresses in England, wept through the long hours--wept for the overthrow of her hope and her love, wept for the life that lay in ruins around her. She was of dauntless courage--she knew no fear; but she did tremble and quail before the future stretching out before her--the future that was to have no love, and was to be spent without him. How was she to bear it? She had known no other hope in life, no other dream. What had been childish nonsense to him had been to her a serious and exquisite reality. He had either forgotten it, or had thought of it only with annoyance; she had made it the very corner-stone of her life. It was not only a blow of the keenest and cruelest kind to her affections, but it was the cruelest blow her vanity could have possibly received. To think that she, who had more admirers at her feet than any other woman in London, should have tried so hard to win this one, and have failed--that her beauty, her grace, her wit, her talent, should all have been lavished in vain. Why did she fail so completely? Why had she not won his love? It was given to no other--at least she had the consolation of knowing that. He had talked about his ideal, but he had not found it; he had his own ideal of womanhood, but he had not met with it. "Are other women fairer, more lovable than I am?" she asked herself. "Why should another win where I have failed?" So through the long hours of the starlit night she lamented the love and the wreck of her life, she mourned for the hope that could never live again, while her name was on the lips of men who praised her as the queen of beauty, and fair women envied her as one who had but to will and to win. She would have given her whole fortune to win his love--not once, but a hundred times over. It seemed to her a cruel mockery of fate that she who had everything the world could give--beauty, health, wealth, fortune--should ask but this one gift, and that it should be refused her. She watched the stars until they faded from the skies and then she buried her face in the pillow and sobbed herself to sleep. Chapter XII. It was when the sun, shining into her room, reached her that an idea occurred to Philippa which was like the up-springing of new life to her. All was not yet lost. He did not love her--he had not thought of making her his wife; but it did not follow that he would never do so. What had not patience and perseverance accomplished before now? What had not love won?