rately, "why are you silent? Can you not
forgive?"

"Forgive?" I echoed. "Dear, I was silent, being lost in wonder, in
love. Forget that foolish crown; forget even Corsica! Soon we will
take the diamond and cross the mountains together, to a kingdom
better than Corsica. There," I wound up, forcing myself to speak
lightly, "if ever dispute should arise between us, as king and queen
we will ask my uncle Gervase to decide. He, gallant man, will say,
'Prosper, to whom do you owe your life?' . . ."

"The mountains? Ah, not yet--not yet!" She put out her hands and
crept to me blindly, nestling, pressing her face against my ragged
coat. "A little while," she sobbed while I held her so. "A little
while!--until the child--until our child--"

How can I write what yet remains to be written?

Our child was never born. So often, hand in hand, we had climbed to
the pine-woods that it escaped my notice how she, who had used to be
my support, came by degrees to lean on my arm. I saw her broken by
fasting and vigil, and for me, I winced at the sound of her cough.
The blood on her handkerchief accused me. "But we must wait until
the child is born," I promised myself, "and the mountain air will
quickly cure her." Fool! the good farm-people knew better. While I
gained strength, day by day she was wasting. "Only let us cross the
mountains," I prayed, "and at home all my life shall pay for her
love!" Fool, again! She would never cross the mountains, now.

There came a day when I climbed the pine-wood alone. With my new
strength, and because her weight was not on my arm, I climbed higher
than usual; and then the noise of chopping drew me on to the upper
edge of the forest, where I found Brother Polifilo with his sleeves
rolled, hacking at a tree. He dropped his axe and stared at me, as
at a ghost. I could not guess what perturbed him; for he had called
at the farm but the day before and heard me boast of my new strength.

I sat down to watch him. But after a stroke or two his arm appeared
to fail him, and he desisted. Without a word, almost without looking
at me, he laid the axe over his shoulder and went up the path towards
his chapel.

I gazed after him, wondering. Then, of a sudden, I understood.

Three days later she died. To the end they could not persuade me it
was possible; nay at the very end, while she lay panting against my
arm, I could not believe.

She died quietly--so quietly. A little bef