First Part Chapter 24

LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE
October.

My dear friend,--How is it possible that you, who brought yourself in
two months to marry a broken-down invalid in order to mother him,
should know anything of that terrible shifting drama, enacted in the
recesses of the heart, which we call love--a drama where death lies in
a glance or a light reply?

I had reserved for Felipe one last supreme test which was to be
decisive. I wanted to know whether his love was the love of a Royalist
for his King, who can do no wrong. Why should the loyalty of a
Catholic be less supreme?

He walked with me a whole night under the limes at the bottom of the
garden, and not a shadow of suspicion crossed his soul. Next day he
loved me better, but the feeling was as reverent, as humble, as
regretful as ever; he had not presumed an iota. Oh! he is a very
Spaniard, a very Abencerrage. He scaled my wall to come and kiss the
hand which in the darkness I reached down to him from my balcony. He
might have broken his neck; how many of our young men would do the
like? But all this is nothing; Christians suffer the horrible pangs of
martyrdom in the hope of heaven. The day before yesterday I took aside
the royal ambassador-to-be at the court of Spain, my much respected
father, and said to him with a smile: