that it was like to
break; for my separation from thee was so much harder to bear even
than I had taken thought of, and I also doubted me that I could
live in Paris, as I did wish. Sleep rested not upon my weary eyes,
and of a very deed could I neither eat nor drink, since food
distasted me like a nausea, and wine did strangle in my throat.
This lasted through my journey hither, which I did prolong upon
many pretexts, nearly two months, but when I did at last rest mine
eyes for the first time upon this King Louis's face, I well knew
that I could rule him, and when I did arrive, and had adjusted
myself in this Paris, I found it so easy that my heart leaped for
very joy. Beauty goeth so far with this inflammable people that
easily do I rule them all, and truly doth a servile subject make
a sharp, capricious tyrant. Thereby the misfortune which hath come
upon us is of so much less evil, and is so like to be of such
short duration, that I am almost happy--but for lack of thee--and
sometimes think that after all it may verily be a blessing unseen.

"This new, unexpected face upon our trouble hath so driven the old
gnawing ache out of my heart that I love to be alone, and dream,
open-eyed, of the time, of a surety not far off, when I shall be
with thee.... It is ofttimes sore hard for me, who have never
waited, to have to wait, like a patient Griselda, which of a truth
I am not, for this which I do so want; but I try to make myself
content with the thought that full sure it will not be for long,
and that when this tedious time hath spent itself, we shall look
back upon it as a very soul-school, and shall rather joy that we
did not purchase our heaven too cheaply.

"I said I find it easy to live here as I wish, and did begin to
tell thee how it was, when I ran off into telling of how I long
for thee; so I will try again. This Louis, to begin with, is but
the veriest shadow of a man, of whom thou needst have not one
jealous thought. He is on a bed of sickness most of the time, of
his own accord, and if, perchance, he be but fairly well a day or
so, I do straightway make him ill again in one way or another,
and, please God, hope to wear him out entirely ere long time. Of a
deed, brother Henry was right; better had it been for Louis to
have married a human devil than me, for it maketh a very one out
of me if mine eyes but rest upon him, and thou knowest f