He had sinned, and had repented; and now to her eyes he was again as pure as snow.

Others would now doubt him, that must needs be the case; but she would never doubt him; no, not a whit the more in that he had once fallen.

He should still be the cynosure of her eyes, the pride of her heart, the centre of her hopes.

Marina said of her lord, when he came to her shattered in limb, from the hands of the torturer-- 'I would not change My exiled, mangled, persecuted husband, Alive or dead, for prince or paladin, In story or in fable, with a world To back his suit.' Gertrude spoke to herself in the same language.

She would not have changed her Alaric, branded with infamy as he now was, or soon would be, for the proudest he that carried his head high among the proud ones of the earth.