The recommendations were, first, it would take him away from Mary, with whom—­when out of the inspiring influence of her buoyant hopefulness—­he knew marriage to be utterly impossible; and second, admitting and facing that impossibility, he might find at least partial relief from his heartache in the stirring events and adventures of that faraway land of monsters, dragons, savages and gold.  The possibility lay in the gold, and a very faintly burning flame of hope held out the still more faintly glimmering chance that fortune, finding him there almost alone, might, for lack of another lover, smile upon him by way of squaring accounts.  She might lead him to a cavern of gold, and gold would do anything; even, perhaps, purchase so priceless a treasure as a certain princess of the blood royal.  He did not, however, dwell much on this possibility, but kept the delightful hope well neutralized with a constantly present sense of its improbability, in order to save the pain of a long fall when disappointment should come.

Brandon at once accepted the king’s offer of lodging in the palace, for now that he felt sure of himself in the matter of New Spain, and his separation from Mary, he longed to see as much as possible of her before the light went out forever, even though it were playing with death itself to do so.

Poor fellow, his suffering was so acute during this period that it affected me like a contagion.

It did not make a mope of him, but came in spasms that almost drove him wild.  He would at times pace the room and cry out:  “Jesu!  Caskoden, what shall I do?  She will be the wife of the French king, and I shall sit in the wilderness and try every moment to imagine what she is doing and thinking.  I shall find the bearing of Paris, and look in her direction until my brain melts in my effort to see her, and then I shall wander in the woods, a suffering imbecile, feeding on roots and nuts.  Would to God one of us might die.  If it were not selfish, I should wish I might be the one.”

I said nothing in answer to these outbursts, as I had no consolation to offer.

We had two or three of our little meetings of four, dangerous as they were, at which Mary, feeling that each time she saw Brandon might be the last, would sit and look at him with glowing eyes that in turn softened and burned as he spoke.  She did not talk much, but devoted all her time and energies to looking with her whole soul.  Never before or since was there a girl so much in love.  A young girl thoroughly in love is the most beautiful object on earth—­beautiful even in ugliness.  Imagine, then, what it made of Mary!

Growing partly, perhaps, out of his unattainability—­for he was as far out of her reach as she out of his—­she had long since begun to worship him.  She had learned to know him so well, and his valiant defense of her in Billingsgate, together with his noble self-sacrifice in refusing to compromise her in order to save himself, had presented him to her in so noble a light that she had come to look up to him as her superior.  Her surrender had been complete, and she found in it a joy far exceeding that of any victory or triumph she could imagine.