not have it!' Count Eglamore must cry. It cost
you very highly to speak those words. I think it would have puzzled my
father to hear those words at which so many fertile lands, stout
castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of cattle, gilded coaches,
liveries and curious tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all
vanished like a puff of smoke. Ah, yes, my father would have thought
you mad."

"I had no choice," he said, and waved a little gesture of impotence.
He spoke as with difficulty, almost wearily. "I love you. It is a
theme on which I do not embroider. So long as I had thought to use you
as an instrument I could woo fluently enough. To-day I saw that you
were frightened and helpless--oh, quite helpless. And something
changed in me. I knew for the first time that I loved you and that I
was not clean as you are clean. What it was of passion and horror, of
despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in my being then I
cannot tell you. It spurred me to such action as I took,--but it has
robbed me of sugared eloquence, it has left me chary of speech. It is
necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon
the heights there is silence."

And Graciosa meditated. "Here I am so much merchandise. Heigho, since
I cannot help it, since bought and sold I must be, one day or another,
at least I will go at a noble price. Yet I do not think I am quite
worth the value of these castles and lands and other things which you
gave up because of me, so that it will be necessary to make up the
difference, dear, by loving you very much."

And at that he touched her chin, gently and masterfully, for Graciosa
would have averted her face, and it seemed to Eglamore that he could
never have his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of
Graciosa's face. "Oh, my girl!" he whispered. "Oh, my wonderful,
worshiped, merry girl, whom God has fashioned with such loving care!
you who had only scorn to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and
would you go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?"

"But I shall always have a friend," she answered--"a friend who showed
me what Balthazar's daughter was and what love is. And I am vain
enough to believe I shall not ever be very far from home so long as I
am near to my friend's heart."

A mortal man could not but take her in his arms.

"Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore; "farewell, poor clay
so plastic the least touch remo