She stood before him with downcast eyes, the tears streaming down her pale cheeks, exquisitively lovely in her agitation and sorrow.  Yes, she did love him; her heart was beating passionately; she was longing to throw herself on his breast, to be folded upon that manly heart, in trust in that brave, bright look which seemed to defy fortune.  Yes, he was a man born to conquer; he was handsome, intellectual, powerful in all mental and physical gifts.  A man of men.  But he was, by his own admission, a very obscure and insignificant person, and he had no money.  Life with him meant a long fight with adverse circumstances; life for his wife must mean patience, submission, long waiting upon destiny, and perhaps with old age and grey hairs the tardy turning of Fortune’s wheel.  And was she for this to resign the kingdom that had been promised to her, the giddy heights which she was born to scale, the triumphs and delights and victories of the great world?  Yes, Lesbia loved this fortuneless knight; but she loved herself and her prospects of promotion still better.

’Oh, Lesbia, can you not be brave for my sake—­trustful for my sake?  God will be good to us if we are true to each other.’

’God will not be good to me if I disobey my grandmother.  I owe her too much; ingratitude in me would be doubly base.  I will speak to her.  I will tell her all you have said, and if she gives me the faintest encouragement——­’

’She will not; that is a foregone conclusion.  Tell her all, if you like; but let us be prepared for the answer.  When she denies the right of your heart to choose its own mate, then rise up in the might of your womanhood and defy her.  Tell her, “I love him, and be he rich or poor, I will share his fate;” tell her boldly, bravely, nobly, as a true woman should; and if she be adamant still, proclaim your right to disobey her worldly wisdom rather than the voice of your own heart.  And then come to me, darling, and be my own, and the world which you and I will face together shall not be a bad world.  I will answer for that.  No trouble shall come near you.  No humiliation shall ever touch you.  Only believe in me.’

‘I can believe in you, but not in the impossible,’ answered Lesbia, with measured accents.

The voice was silver-sweet, but passing cold.  Just then there was a rustling among the pine branches, and Lesbia looked round with a startled air.

‘Is there any one listening?’ she exclaimed.  ‘What was that?’

’Only the breath of heaven.  Oh, Lesbia, if you were but a little less wise, a little more trustful.  Do not be a dumb idol.  Say that you love me, or do not love me.  If you can look me in the face and say the last, I will leave you without another word.  I will take my sentence and go.’

But this was just what Lesbia could not do.  She could not deny her love; and yet she could not sacrifice all things for her love.  She lifted the heavy lids which veiled those lovely eyes, and looked up at him imploringly.