, I were wedded to a Frenchman. Then would the stern
English lords never permit that I have any finger in the government."
She came to him with conspicuous deliberation and rested her hands
upon his breast. "Friend, I am weary of these tinsel splendors. What
are this England and this France to me, who crave the real kingdom?"

Her mouth was tremulous and lax, and her gray eyes were more brilliant
than the star yonder. The man's arms were about her, and of the man's
face I cannot tell you. "King's daughter! mistress of half Europe! I
am a beggar, an outcast, as a leper among honorable persons."

But it was as though he had not spoken. "Friend, it was for this I
have outlived these garish, fevered years, it was this which made me
glad when I was a child and laughed without knowing why. That I might
to-day give up this so-great power for love of you, my all-incapable
and soiled Antoine, was, as I now know, the end to which the Eternal
Father created me. For, look you," she pleaded, "to surrender absolute
dominion over half Europe is a sacrifice. Assure me that it is a
sacrifice, Antoine! O glorious fool, delude me into the belief that I
surrender much in choosing you! Nay, I know it is as nothing beside
what you have given up for me, but it is all I have--it is all I have,
Antoine!"

He drew a deep and big-lunged breath that seemed to inform his being
with an indomitable vigor; and grief and doubtfulness went quite away
from him. "Love leads us," he said, "and through the sunlight of the
world Love leads us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but
always in the end, if we but follow without swerving, Love leads
upward. Yet, O God upon the Cross! Thou that in the article of death
didst pardon Dysmas! as what maimed warriors of life, as what bemired
travellers in muddied byways, must we presently come to Thee!"

"Ah, but we will come hand in hand," she answered; "and He will
comprehend."

THE END OF THE NINTH NOVEL

X

THE STORY OF THE FOX-BRUSH

"Dame serez de mon cueur, sans debat,
Entierement, jusques mort me consume.
Laurier souef qui pour mon droit combat,
Olivier franc, m'ostant toute amertume."

THE TENTH NOVEL.--KATHARINE OF VALOIS IS LOVED BY A HUNTSMAN, AND
LOVES HIM GREATLY; THEN FINDS HIM, TO HER HORROR, AN IMPOSTOR; AND FOR
A SUFFICIENT REASON CONSENTS TO MARRY QUITE ANOTHER PERSON, NOT ALL
UNWILLINGLY.

_The Story of the Fox-Brush_

In the year of grace 1417, about