LXIX.
This note, so sent,
Was—would you guess it?—Edith’s. What she wrote,
Weighs love against all liking to this hour.
All thrill’d with hope, yet trembling for my fate,
I spell’d out all her tale:—“Her sire—his aims—
And her fulfilment of them—her success—
Earth seem’d a kingdom prostrate at her feet,
And she, a queen; alas, but, like a queen,
Was doom’d to hold a throne where rivals came,