s no further
need for that forced composure, he began more clearly to recognize his
position, and his heart grew heavy. This, then, was the end of those
visions of loving companionship and constant and sustaining sympathy
with which he had dared to fill the future. He had thought little of
anything that might be demanded from him so long as he could anticipate
Natalie's approval, and be rewarded with a single glance of gratitude
from the proud, dark, beautiful eyes. What mattered it to him what
became of himself, what circumstances surrounded them, so long as he and
she were together? But now a more terrible sacrifice than any he had
dreamed of had to be made. The lady of love whom the Pilgrims had sworn
to serve was proving herself inexorable indeed:

"--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except to serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky,
And go forth naked under sun and rain,
And work and wait and watch out all his years."

When Lord Evelyn had asked him whether he was prepared to go to America
_alone_, he had clasped the ring that Natalie had given him, and
answered "Yes." But that was as a matter of theory. It was what he might
do, in certain possible circumstances. Now that he had to face the
reality, and bethink him of the necessity of taking Natalie's hand for
the last time, his heart sank within him.

He walked on blindly through the busy streets, seeing nothing around
him. His memory was going over the most trivial incidents connected with
Natalie, as if every look of hers, every word she had uttered, was now
become something inexpressibly precious. Were there not many things he
could carry away with him to the land beyond the seas? No distance or
time could rob him of the remembrance of that night at the opera--the
scent of white rose--her look as she gave him the forget-me-nots. Then
the beautiful shining day as they drew near to Dover, and her pride
about England, and the loosened curls of hair that blew about her neck.
On the very first evening on which he had seen her--she sitting at the
table and bending over the zither--her profile touched by the
rose-tinted light from the shade of the candle--the low, rich voice,
only half heard, singing the old, familiar,