told
you, by Mme. de Mirbel. I contrived to get a copy made, good enough
to do for the Duke, and sent the original to Felipe. I despatched it
yesterday, and these lines with it:

"Don Felipe, your single-hearted devotion is met by a blind
confidence. Time will show whether this is not to treat a man as
more than human."

It was a big reward. It looked like a promise and--dreadful to say--a
challenge; but--which will seem to you still more dreadful--I quite
intended that it should suggest both these things, without going so far
as actually to commit me. If in his reply there is "Dear Louise!" or
even "Louise," he is done for!

Tuesday.

No, he is not done for. The constitutional minister is perfect as a
lover. Here is his letter:--

"Every moment passed away from your sight has been filled by me
with ideal pictures of you, my eyes closed to the outside world
and fixed in meditation on your image, which used to obey the
summons too slowly in that dim palace of dreams, glorified by your
presence. Henceforth my gaze will rest upon this wondrous ivory--
this talisman, might I not say?--since your blue eyes sparkle with
life as I look, and paint passes into flesh and blood. If I have
delayed writing, it is because I could not tear myself away from
your presence, which wrung from me all that I was bound to keep
most secret.

"Yes, closeted with you all last night and to-day, I have, for the
first time in my life, given myself up to full, complete, and
boundless happiness. Could you but see yourself where I have
placed you, between the Virgin and God, you might have some idea
of the agony in which the night has passed. But I would not offend
you by speaking of it; for one glance from your eyes, robbed of
the tender sweetness which is my life, would be full of torture
for me, and I implore your clemency therefore in advance. Queen of
my life and of my soul, oh! that you could grant me but one-
thousandth part of the love I bear you!

"This was the burden of my prayer; doubt worked havoc in my soul
as I oscillated between belief and despair, between life and
death, darkness and light. A criminal whose verdict hangs in the
balance is not more racked with suspense than I, as I own to my
temerity. The smile imaged on your lips, to which my eyes turned
ever and again, and alone able to calm the storm roused by the
dread of displeasing you. From my birth no one, n