"For three evenings I was permitted to visit her; on the third the full moon stood above the red fir tree. The cracking of its branches in the night wind reminded me of my distant home. "We wandered silently in the garden, forgetful of time--of everything--but that the oppression of the parting hour weighed upon us. She must go; she repeated it; I did not ask her why--I asked nothing. I still stood beneath the whole magic of her presence. Morning dawned at last, and released the dark masses of the groups of trees from the darkness with which they had been blended. "It was a morning full of mournful sadness; tears hung on Giulia's long eye-lashes. "'Let your thoughts return to these days, these happy days, as to a fairy-tale--for me they were more, far more! They have quite effaced all the rest of my life; and yet I must return to joyless gloom. I must--and, therefore--farewell!' "One more burning kiss, one last embrace; I felt her tears upon my cheeks; her locks flowed over me like a tide of endless pain--we parted! "After the little garden door was shut, something rustled near me amongst the shrubs, beneath the chestnuts; as I went farther on, I perceived a figure creeping behind me, which reminded me of that singular stranger who had already once played the spy upon us on the shore; however, I did not trouble myself about him, but went to my hotel, without again looking behind me. "I kept my promise faithfully not to enquire about this queen of the night who had bloomed for me in such enrapturing splendour on the banks of that magic lake; held to it so faithfully that for a long time I avoided asking myself who that mysterious beauty could be? "There is a heart's shrine for relics which one may not touch without destroying the charm that clings to those sacred recollections--the lotos-flower, which is the cradle of a god no hand may touch. "Never to be forgotten are the days and nights on the shores of that beautiful lake. I have seen lakes in the highlands of Mongolia, amongst the mountain-giants of Thibet; but all these pictures were effaced beside the burning outlines in which the Lago Maggiore printed itself upon my soul. "All the same in later times I often surprised myself in reprehensible curiosity; who was this Lady of the Lake? Her highly-bred manner told that she was a lady of distinction--an equal of her friend, that princess, in whose society I had first seen her. But the fetter that bound her? Was it the bond of matrimony, for which, however, in Italy, in the most aristocratic circles, the _cicisbeat_ offers a compensation, rendered sacred by custom! "I thought of the Countess Guiccioli, Byron's beautiful beloved--she did not conceal her happiness from her husband--and tie used to drive his favoured rival out in Ravenna, in his carriage and six--yes, the former rented quarters in the Count's castle.