Neither storm nor lightning, wind nor rain, sun nor snow had prevailed against it to dry it up and cast it down that another might grow in its place.
Yet this love was not for her to whom he spoke, and she knew it as she answered him, though she answered truly, from the fulness of her heart.
She had cast an enchantment over him unwittingly, and she was taken in the toils of her own magic even as she had sworn that she would never again put forth her powers.

She shuddered as she realised it all.

In a few short moments she had felt his kisses, and heard his words, and been clasped to his heart, as she had many a time madly hoped.

But in those moments, too, she had known the truth of her woman's instinct when it had told her that love must be for herself and for her own sake, or not be love at all.
The falseness, the fathomless untruth of it, would have been bad enough alone.

But the truth that was so strong made it horrible.