at last
They paused, and sat down on a bench in the shade,
So close that he could not but hear what they said.

XIX.

LUCILE.

Duke, I scarcely conceive...

LUVOIS.

Ah! forgive!... I desired
So deeply to see you to-day. You retired
So early last night from the ball... this whole week
I have seen you pale, silent, preoccupied... speak,
Speak, Lucile, and forgive me!... I know that I am
A rash fool--but I love you! I love you, Madame.
More than language can say! Do not deem, O Lucile,
That the love I no longer have strength to conceal
Is a passing caprice! It is strange to my nature,
It has made me, unknown to myself, a new creature.
I implore you to sanction and save the new life
Which I lay at your feet with this prayer--Be my wife
Stoop, and raise me!
Lord Alfred could scarcely restrain
The sudden, acute pang of anger and pain
With which he had heard this. As though to some wind
The leaves of the hush'd, windless laurels behind
The two thus in converse were suddenly stirr'd.
The sound half betrayed him. They started. He heard
The low voice of Lucile; but so faint was its tone
That her answer escaped him.
Luvois hurried on,
As though in remonstrance with what had been spoken.
"Nay, I know it, Lucile! but your heart was not broken
By the trial in which all its fibres were proved.
Love, perchance, you mistrust, yet you need to be loved.
You mistake your own feelings. I fear you mistake
What so ill I interpret, those feelings which make
Words like these vague and feeble. Whatever your heart
May have suffer'd of yore, this can only impart
A pity profound to the love which I feel.
Hush! hush! I know all. Tell me nothing, Lucile."
"You know all, Duke?" she said; "well then, know that, in truth,
I have learn'd from the rude lesson taught to my youth
From my own heart to shelter my life; to mistrust
The heart of another. We are what we must,
And not what we would be. I know that one hour
Assures not another. The will and the power
Are diverse."
"O madam!" he answer'd, "you fence
With a feeling you know to be true and intense.
'Tis not MY life, Lucile, that I plead for a