had been for so many days
his loadstar, Quentin felt a strange vacancy and chillness of the heart,
which he had not yet experienced in any of the vicissitudes to which
his life had subjected him. No doubt the cessation of the close and
unavoidable intercourse and intimacy betwixt them was the necessary
consequence of the Countess's having obtained a place of settled
residence, for under what pretext could she, had she meditated such an
impropriety, have had a gallant young squire such as Quentin in constant
attendance upon her?

But the shock of the separation was not the more welcome that it seemed
unavoidable, and the proud heart of Quentin swelled at finding he was
parted with like an ordinary postilion, or an escort whose duty is
discharged, while his eyes sympathised so far as to drop a secret tear
or two over the ruins of all those airy castles, so many of which he had
employed himself in constructing during their too interesting journey.
He made a manly, but, at first, a vain effort to throw off this mental
dejection, and so, yielding to the feelings he could not suppress,
he sat him down in one of the deep recesses formed by a window which
lighted the great Gothic hall of Schonwaldt, and there mused upon his
hard fortune, which had not assigned him rank or wealth sufficient to
prosecute his daring suit.

Quentin tried to dispel the sadness which overhung him by dispatching
Charlet, one of the valets, with letters to the court of Louis,
announcing the arrival of the Ladies of Croye at Liege. At length his
natural buoyancy of temper returned, much excited by the title of an old
romaunt [a poetical romance] which had been just printed at Strasbourg,
and which lay beside him in the window, the title of which set forth--

How the Squire of lowe degree
Loved the King's daughter of Hungarie.

[An old English poem reprinted in Hazlitt's Remains of Early Popular
Poetry of England.]

While he was tracing the "letters blake" of the ditty so congenial to
his own situation, Quentin was interrupted by a touch on the shoulder,
and, looking up, beheld the Bohemian standing by him.

Hayraddin, never a welcome sight, was odious from his late treachery,
and Quentin sternly asked him why he dared take the freedom to touch a
Christian and a gentleman?

"Simply," answered the Bohemian, "because I wished to know if the
Christian gentleman had lost his feeling as well as his eyes and ears.
I have stood speak