And he felt the bitterest drop of the fountains was not sorrow for himself, but for her.

What pangs must that high spirit have endured ere it could have submitted to the avowal it had made! Yet, even in this affliction he found at last a solace.

A mind so strong could support and heal the weakness of the heart.

He felt that Valerie de Ventadour was not a woman to pine away in the unresisted indulgence of morbid and unholy emotions.

He could not flatter himself that she would not seek to eradicate a love she repented; and he sighed with a natural selfishness, when he owned also that sooner or later she would succeed.
"But be it so," said he, half aloud--"I will prepare my heart to rejoice when I learn that she remembers me only as a friend.