"Yes, they are all gone," said the princess; "all who linked me to the past, and were portions of my Richard's being. They are gone from before me. But are they truly no more, or do they live, like you, brooding over the lost, disdaining to communicate with one who lives but to remember them? Of the death of several I have heard; but often I have longed with bitterness to hear of you, and of the Spanish maiden, Monina de Faro."
"Her gentle soul," replied Edmund; "has flown to join him for whom she lived and died. It is now two years since I was assured of this. A friar, whom I had formerly well known, visited Lisbon; and I entreated him to inquire for De Faro and his child. The commander of the Adalid was almost forgotten; at last, an old sailor was found, who remembered that, some years before, he had sailed for the Western Indies, and was never heard of more."
"His daughter accompanied him?"
"In the churchyard of a convent, placed high among the foldings of those lovely hills which overlook Lisbon, he was shown an humble tomb, half defaced; her dear, sacred name is carved upon it, and half the date, the 14—, which showed that she died before the century began, in which we now live.[3] She could not have survived our prince many months; probably she died before him, nor ever knew the worst pang of all, the ignominy linked with his beloved memory."
"And you, my kinsman, how long have you wedded penury and labour in this obscure disguise?"
"Penury and labour," said Plantagenet, "are not confined to the humble occupation I have adopted. I was made poor by the death-blow of my hopes; and my chief labour is to tame my heart to resignation to the will of God. Obscure you may indeed call my destination. Would I could shroud it in tenfold night! Dearer to me is the silence and loneliness of this spot, where I can for ever commune undisturbed with the past, than a pomp which is stained by the blood of him whom once I thought we all loved so well.
"When—oh, let me name not the frightful thing!—when he was gone for ever, the whole world was to me but one miserable tomb. I groped in darkness, misery my mate, eternal lamentation my sole delight. The first thing that brought peace to my soul, was the beauty of this visible universe. When God permitted, for some inscrutable purpose, moral evil to be showered so plentifully over us, he gave us a thousand resources out of ourselves in compensation. If I mingled with my fellow-creatures, how dearly should I miss him, who was single among men for goodness, wisdom, and heaven-born nobility of soul. My heart sickens at the evil things that usurp the shape of humanity, and dare deem themselves of the same species: I turn from all, loathing. But here there is no change, no falling off, no loss of beauty and of good: these glades, these copses, the seasons' change and elemental ministrations, are for ever the same—the type of their Maker in glory and in good. The loveliness of earth saves me from despair: the Majesty of Heaven imparts aspiring hope. I bare my bosom to the breeze, and my wretched heart throbs less wildly. I drink in the balmy sweetness of the hour, and repose again on the goodness of my Creator.
"Yours is another existence, lady; you need the adulation of the crowd—the luxury of palaces; you purchase these, even by communing with the murderer of him who deserved a dearer recompense at your hands."
Katherine smiled sadly at these last words, which betrayed the thought that rankled in her kinsman's mind. "I thank you," she replied, "for your details. I will not blame you for the false judgment you pass on me. When years and quiet thought have brought you back from the tempest of emotion that shakes you, you will read my heart better, and know that it is still faithfully devoted to him I have lost."
"Ah! say those words again," cried Plantagenet, "and teach me to believe them. I would give my right hand to approve your conduct, to love and reverence you once again."