uch a loveless life."

"And why should thy life be loveless, Wendot?" asked Alphonso, with
kindling eyes and a brightening smile. "Dost not thou know? -- does not
thine own heart tell thee that one faithful heart beats for thee and
thee alone? Have I not seen thee with her times and again? Have not your
eyes told eloquent secrets -- though I know not what your lips have said --"

Wendot's face was all in a glow, but he broke in hastily:

"Prince, prince, speak not of her. If I have been beguiled, if I have
betrayed the feelings which I cannot help, but which I must hold sternly
in check -- be not thou the one to taunt me with my weakness. There is
none like her in the world. I have known it for long. But even because I
know it so well I may not even dream of her. It is not with me as of
old, when her father spoke to me of troth plight. I am a beggar, an
outcast, a prisoner. She is rich, honoured, courted. She is the
brightest star of the court --"

"And she loveth thee, Wendot," interposed Alphonso firmly. "She has
loved thee from childhood with a faithful and true love which merits
better things than to be cast aside as if it were but dross. What are
lands and gold to a woman if her lover share them not? Is it meet that
she should suffer so cruelly simply because her father has left her well
endowed? Wendot, on Lord Montacute's dying bed this daughter of his
avowed her love for thee, and he gave her his blessing and bade her act
as she would. Art thou, then, to be the one to break her heart, ay, and
thine own, too, because thou art too proud to take more than thou canst
give?

"Fie, man! the world is wide and thou art young. Thou hast time to win
thy spurs and bring home noble spoil to lay at thy lady's feet. Only let
not pride stand in the way of her happiness and thine own. Thou hast
said that life is dark and drear unless it be shared with some loved
one. Then how canst thou hold back, when thou hast confessed thine own
love and learned that hers is thine? Take it, and be grateful for the
treasure thou hast won, and fear not but that thou wilt bring as much as
thou wilt receive. There are strange chances in the fate of each one of
us. Who knows but that thou and she will not yet reign again in the
halls of Dynevor?"

Wendot started and flushed, and again paced down the whole length of the
room. When he returned to the window Alphonso had gone, and in his place
stood Gertrude herself, her sweet face dyed rosy r