to call themselves
patriots. And those, Lenore, who live to see their country's hopeless
ruin, plunge into a sadness at heart that no other loss can equal, no
remaining blessing mitigate,--neither the devotion of a wife nor the
perfection of a child. You have seen exiles from a lost land? Pride is
dead in them, hope is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me,
would you choose me to suffer the personal loss of love and you, a loss
I could hide in my aching soul, or to bear those black marks of gall and
melancholy which forever overshadow them in widest grief and gloom?"

She had sunk upon a seat, and was looking up at me with a pained
unwavering glance, as if in my words she foresaw my fate.

"You are too intense!" she cried. "Your tones, your eyes, your gestures,
make it an individual thing with you."

"And so it is!" I exclaimed. "I cannot sleep in peace, nor walk upon the
ways, while these Austrian bayonets take my sunshine, these threatening
approaching French banners hide the fair light of heaven!"

"Come," she said, rising. "Speak no more. I am tired of the burden of
the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that already I hate
it. Come out again into our garden with me. Dismiss these cares, these
burning pains and rankling wounds. Be soothed by the cool evening air,
taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew."

So we went. I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then
she promised to love Italy only because _I_ loved it. I told her my
secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility, I
learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly
true. Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart
while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from
their azure noon-splendor and took the violet glooms of the hour, a
great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I
printed my soul on her lips ere I left her.

At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets,
I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence. I could not
escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other
consideration. I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the
routine of bath and refreshment, and sought my former duties. But how
changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I
worked! Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on