st--sunk back into her
former self,

"Like a blade sent home to its scabbard."

He saddled the very palfrey that had brought the little Duchess to the
castle--the palfrey he had patted as he had led it, thus winning a smile
from her. And he couldn't help thinking that she remembered it too, and
knew that he would do anything in the world for her. But when he began
to saddle his own nag ("of Berold's begetting")--not meaning to be
obtrusive--she stopped him by a finger's lifting, and a small shake of
the head. . . . Well, he lifted her on the palfrey and set the Gipsy
behind her--and then, in a broken voice, he murmured that he was ready
whenever God should please that she needed him. . . . And she looked
down

"With a look, a look that placed a crown on me,"

and felt in her bosom and dropped into his hand . . . not a purse! If it
had been a purse of silver ("or gold that's worse") he would have gone
home, kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned himself--but it was not a
purse; it was a little plait of hair, such as friends make for each
other in a convent:

"This, see, which at my breast I wear,
Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment)
And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.
And then--and then--to cut short--this is idle,
These are feelings it is not good to foster.
I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,
And the palfrey bounded--and so we lost her."

+ + + + +

There is the story of the Flight of the Duchess; and it seems to me to
need no "explanation" at all. The Gipsy can be anyone or anything we
like that _saves_ us; the Duke and his mother anyone or anything that
crushes love.

"Love is the only good in the world."

And the love (though it _may_ be) _need_ not be the love of man for
woman, and woman for man; but simply love. The quick warm impulse which
made this girl look round so eagerly as she approached her future home,
and thank the man who led her horse for patting it, and want to hear the
name of every bird--the impulse from the heart "too soon made glad, too
easily impressed"; the sweet, rich nature of her who "liked whate'er she
looked on, and her looks went everywhere" . . . what was all this but
love? The tiny lady was one great pulse of it; without love she must
die; to give it, take it, was the meaning of her being. And love was
neither given nor accepted from her. Worse, it was scorned; it was not
"fitt