it was,--a purgatory lightened for Charles by love, he
playing the role assigned by Dante to Paolo, though the infanta was
little inclined to imitate Francesca da Rimini. Buckingham fumed and
fretted, was insolent to the Spanish ministers, and sought as earnestly
to get Charles out of Madrid as he had done to get him there, and less
successfully. But the love-stricken prince had become impracticable. His
fancy deepened as the days passed by. Such was the ardor of his passion,
that on one day in May he broke headlong through the rigid wall of
Spanish etiquette, by leaping into the garden in which the lady of his
love was walking, and addressing her in words of passion. The startled
girl shrieked and fled, and Charles was with difficulty hindered from
following her.

Only one end could come of all this. Spain and the pope had the game in
their own hands. Charles had fairly given himself over to them, and his
ardent passion for the lady weakened all his powers of resistance. King
James was a slave to his son, and incapable of refusing him anything.
The end of it all was that the English king agreed that all persecution
of Catholics in England should come to an end, without a thought as to
what the parliament might say to this hasty promise, and Charles signed
papers assenting to all the Spanish demands, excepting that he should
himself become a Catholic.

The year wore wearily on till August was reached. England and her king
were by this time wildly anxious that the prince should return. Yet he
hung on with the pitiful indecision that marked his whole life, and it
is not unlikely that the incident which induced him to leave Spain at
last was a wager with Bristol, who offered to risk a ring worth one
thousand pounds that the prince would spend his Christmas in Madrid.

It was at length decided that he should return, the 2d of September
being the day fixed upon for his departure. He and the king enjoyed a
last hunt together, lunched under the shadows of the trees, and bade
each other a seemingly loving farewell. Buckingham's good-by was of a
different character. It took the shape of a violent quarrel with
Olivares, the Spanish minister of state. And home again set out the
brace of knights-errant, not now in the simple fashion of Tom and John
Smith, but with much of the processional display of a royal cortege.
Then it was a gay ride of two ardent youths across France and Spain, one
filled with thoughts of love, the other wi