u not heard the prayer,
When the blood stood still with loving,
And the blood in me leapt like wine,
And I murmured thy name, Melaenis?--
That heard me, (the glory is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!_

"_Falsely they tell of thy dying,
Thou that art older than Death,
And never the Hoerselberg hid thee,
Whatever the slanderer saith,
For the stars are as heralds forerunning,
When laughter and love combine
At twilight, in thy light, Melaenis--
That heard me, (the glory is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!_"

THE END OF THE FIFTH NOVEL

VI

The Story of the Satraps

"_Je suis voix au desert criant
Que chascun soyt rectifiant
La voye de Sauveur; non suis,
Et accomplir je ne le puis._"

THE SIXTH NOVEL.--ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE ONLY
FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND'S PART; AND
ACHIEVES IN DOING SO THEIR COMMON ANGUISH, AS WELL
AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING
OF A GREAT DISEASE.

The Story of the Satraps

In the year of grace 1381 (Nicolas begins) was Dame Anne magnificently
fetched from remote Bohemia, and at Westminster married to Sire
Richard, the second monarch of that name to reign in England. The
Queen had presently noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about
her court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, and more
forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by day a pitiful wreckage of
humanity both blessed and hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and
adored him, as he never knew at all.

Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was amanuensis to the
Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, and notoriously a by-blow of the
Duke's brother, the dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward
Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, "How wonderful his
likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran,
unacknowledged, "Ay, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to the
observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and
ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than the lazy and
amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too
long and high; and the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the
pair by a very little, and by an infinity the more kinglike.

"You are my cousin now, messire," she told him, and innocently offered
to his lips her own.

He nev