der.

Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to the
chances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secret
nods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on Madame
Royaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd--all were plain
now. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in an
atmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from the
eyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung its
fairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man with
gratitude and admiration!

Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through the
house. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask--but
at what a cost--her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks and
soft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairs
murmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heard
it for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affection
hallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, the
tireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under the
tiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shut
out; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure,
though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried a
weight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage by
stage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dull
despair seize on its place. He saw--and his heart was full--the slender
figure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood--it might be at
the dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from the
dead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or it
might be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; and
his heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could have
kissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand had
touched, the trencher-edge--done any foolish thing to prove his love.

Love? It was a deeper thing than love, a holier, purer thing--that which
he felt. Such a feeling as the rough spearsmen of the Orleannais had for
Joan the maid; or the great Florentine for the girl whom he saw for the
first time at the banquet in the house of the Portinari; or as that man,
who carried to his grave the Queen's glove, yet had never touched it
with his bare hand.