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aven's wanted, there I haven find, Nor e'er for me is star of guidance lost--'" Her voice breaking a little, Ferne made nearer approach to the green bank where she rested. "Do you learn by heart my verses, lady?" he asked. "Ay," she answered, "I did ever love sweet poetry." Her voice thrilled, and she gazed past him at the blue heaven showing between the oak leaves. "If prayer with every breath availeth," she said, "no doubt your Dione will bring your safe return." "Of whom do I write, calling her Dione?" She shook her head. "I know not. None of us at court knows. Master Dyer saith--but surely that one is not worthy--" She ceased to speak, nor knew there had been in her tone both pain and wistfulness. Presently she laughed out, with the facile gayety that one in her position must needs be practised in. "Ah, sir, tell me her name! Is she of the court?" He nodded, "Yes." Damaris clapped her hands. "What lovely hypocrite have we among us? What Lady Pure Innocence, wondering with the rest of the world?--and all the while Cleon's latest sonnet hot against her heart! Is she tall, sir, or short?" "Of your height." The lady shrugged. "Oh, I like not your half-way people! And her hair--but halt! We know her hair is dark: 'Ah, darkness loved beyond all light!' Her eyes--" He bent his head, moving yet nearer to her. "Her eyes--her eyes are wonderful! Where got you your eyes, Dione--Dione?" Crimsoning deeply, Damaris started up, the racket escaping her clasp, and her hands going out in a gesture of dismay and anger. "Sir,--sir," she stammered, "since you make a mock of me, I will begone. No, sir; let me pass! Ah, ... how unworthy of you!" Ferne had caught her by the wrists. "No, no! Dear lady, to whom I am wellnigh a stranger--sweetheart with whom I have talked scarce thrice in all my life--my Dione, to whom my heart is as a crystal, to whom I have written all things! I must speak now, now before I go this voyage! Think you it is in me to vex with saucy words, to make a mock of any gentle lady?" "I know not what to think," she answered, in a strange voice. "I am too dull to understand." "Think that I tell you God's truth!" he cried. "Understand that--" He checked himself, seeing how pale she was and how flutteringly came her breath; then, trained as she herself to instantly draw an airy veil between true feeling and the exigency of the moment, he became once more the simple courtier. "Y
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