“But it shall rise again from the ashes as the bird Phenix, more glorious and fiery than before—pray, shall it not?”
“No, love is like a tender plant; when the night frost touches its heart, it dies from the blossom down to the root.”
“No, love is like the herb named the rose of Jericho. In the dry months it withers and curls up, but when there is a soft and balmy night, with a heavy fall of dew, all its leaves will unfold again, greener and fresher than ever before.”
“It may be so. There are many kinds of love in the world.”
“Truly there are, and ours was such a love.”
“That yours was such you tell me now, but mine—never, never!”
“Then you have never loved.”
“Never loved? Now I shall tell you how I have loved. It was at Frederiksborg—”
“Oh, madam, you have no mercy!”
“No, no, that is not it at all. It was at Frederiksborg. Alas, you little know what I suffered there. I saw that your love was not as it had been. Oh, as a mother watches over her sick child and marks every little change, so I kept watch over your love with fear and trembling, and when I saw in your cold looks how it had paled, and felt in your kisses how feeble was its pulse, it seemed to me I must die with anguish. I wept for this love through long nights; I prayed for it, as if it had been the dearly loved child of my heart that was dying by inches. I cast about for aid and advice in my trouble and for physics to cure your sick love, and whatever secret potions I had heard of, such as love-philtres, I mixed them, betwixt hope and fear, in your morning draught and your supper wine. I laid out your breast-cloth under three waxing moons and read the marriage psalm over it, and on your bedstead I first painted with my own blood thirteen hearts in a cross, but all to no avail, my lord, for your love was sick unto death. Faith, that is the way you were loved.”