icate to produce and so easy to
overthrow! Presently she seemed to make an effort.

"I will take this toy," she said, laid a five-and-sixpenny piece in my
hand, and was gone ere I could thank her.

I retired to a place apart near the ramparts and behind a gun. The
beauty, the expression of her eyes, the tear that had trembled there,
the compassion in her voice, and a kind of wild elegance that
consecrated the freedom of her movements, all combined to enslave my
imagination and inflame my heart. What had she said? Nothing to signify;
but her eyes had met mine, and the fire they had kindled burned
inextinguishably in my veins. I loved her; and I did not fear to hope.
Twice I had spoken with her; and in both interviews I had been well
inspired, I had engaged her sympathies, I had found words that she must
remember, that would ring in her ears at night upon her bed. What
mattered if I were half-shaved and my clothes a caricature? I was still
a man, and I had drawn my image on her memory. I was still a man, and,
as I trembled to realise, she was still a woman. Many waters cannot
quench love; and love, which is the law of the world, was on my side. I
closed my eyes, and she sprang up on the background of the darkness,
more beautiful than in life. "Ah!" thought I, "and you too, my dear, you
too must carry away with you a picture, that you are still to behold
again and still to embellish. In the darkness of night, in the streets
by day, still you are to have my voice and face, whispering, making love
for me, encroaching on your shy heart. Shy as your heart is, _it_ is
lodged there--_I_ am lodged there; let the hours do their office--let
time continue to draw me ever in more lively, ever in more insidious
colours." And then I had a vision of myself, and burst out laughing.

A likely thing, indeed, that a beggar-man, a private soldier, a prisoner
in a yellow travesty, was to awake the interest of this fair girl! I
would not despair; but I saw the game must be played fine and close. It
must be my policy to hold myself before her, always in a pathetic or
pleasing attitude; never to alarm or startle her; to keep my own secret
locked in my bosom like a story of disgrace, and let hers (if she could
be induced to have one) grow at its own rate; to move just so fast, and
not by a hair's-breadth any faster, than the inclination of her heart. I
was the man, and yet I was passive, tied by the foot in prison. I could
not go to her; I must