"Valerie, herself, and, as I knew her only before her fatal illness had marked her down.

Did Alixe give you this ?" He clutched at it with his trembling hands.
"Go on," harshly said Alan Hawke, "the hour is late!" The Pole buried his face in his thinned hands, and then brokenly resumed: "The old story--the only one you know.

She was about my own age; Troubetskoi was nearly always away; perhaps he thought to trap all my traitorous circle through me, or else he was in the secret service of the hungry Russian eagle.

Valerie roamed silently through the great halls of Jitomir, saddened and lonely, for their union was childless.
My heart spoke to her own in my music; she knew the prayer of my soul, though my lips were silent.

For I madly adored her.