Zenobia and Coverdale

At length she sat up, put back her hair, and stared about her with a
bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly recollecting the scene through
which she had passed, nor cognizant of the situation in which it left
her. Her face and brow were almost purple with the rush of blood.
They whitened, however, by and by, and for some time retained this
deathlike hue. She put her hand to her forehead, with a gesture that
made me forcibly conscious of an intense and living pain there.

Her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over me several times,
without appearing to inform her of my presence. But, finally, a look
of recognition gleamed from her eyes into mine.

"Is it you, Miles Coverdale?" said she, smiling. "Ah, I perceive what
you are about! You are turning this whole affair into a ballad. Pray
let me hear as many stanzas as you happen to have ready."

"Oh, hush, Zenobia!" I answered. "Heaven knows what an ache is in my
soul!"

"It is genuine tragedy, is it not?" rejoined Zenobia, with a sharp,
light laugh. "And you are willing to allow, perhaps, that I have had
hard measure. But it is a woman's doom, and I have deserved it like a
woman; so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no
complaint. It is all right, now, or will shortly be so. But, Mr.
Coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and put your soul's ache
into it, and turn your sympathy to good account, as other poets do, and
as poets must, unless they choose to give us glittering icicles instead
of lines of fire. As for the moral, it shall be distilled into the
final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey."