onnets you will never see, for my poetry is too
unworthy of its theme, I dare not send it to you. Not a moment passes
without thoughts of you, for my whole being is bound up in you, and if
you ceased to be its animating principle, every part would ache.

Now, Louise, can you realize the torture to me of knowing that I had
displeased you, while entirely ignorant of the cause? The ideal double
life which seemed so fair was cut short. My heart turned to ice within
me as, hopeless of any other explanation, I concluded that you had
ceased to love me. With heavy heart, and yet not wholly without comfort,
I was falling back upon my old post as servant; then your letter came
and turned all to joy. Oh! might I but listen for ever to such chiding!

Once a child, picking himself up from a tumble, turned to his mother
with the words "Forgive me." Hiding his own hurt, he sought pardon for
the pain he had caused her. Louise, I was that child, and such as I was
then, I am now. Here is the key to my character, which your slave in all
humility places in your hands.

But do not fear, there will be no more stumbling. Keep tight the chain
which binds me to you, so that a touch may communicate your lightest
wish to him who will ever remain your slave, FELIPE.

XXIV. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE October.

My dear friend,--How is it possible that you, who brought yourself in
two months to marry a broken-down invalid in order to mother him, should
know anything of that terrible shifting drama, enacted in the recesses
of the heart, which we call love--a drama where death lies in a glance
or a light reply?

I had reserved for Felipe one last supreme test which was to be
decisive. I wanted to know whether his love was the love of a Royalist
for his King, who can do no wrong. Why should the loyalty of a Catholic
be less supreme?

He walked with me a whole night under the limes at the bottom of the
garden, and not a shadow of suspicion crossed his soul. Next day
he loved me better, but the feeling was as reverent, as humble, as
regretful as ever; he had not presumed an iota. Oh! he is a very
Spaniard, a very Abencerrage. He scaled my wall to come and kiss the
hand which in the darkness I reached down to him from my balcony. He
might have broken his neck; how many of our young men would do the like?

But all this is nothing; Christians suffer the horrible pangs of
martyrdom in the hope of heaven. The day before yesterday I