I think that the pomp itself, the lord and the lackeys, the fine house, and all her state struck as it were cold at my heart, dooming to failure the mad appeal which they could not smother.

But there was more; for all these might have been, and yet not reached or infected her soul.

But when I spoke to her in words that had for me a sweetness so potent as to win me from all hesitation and make as nothing the whole world beside, she did not understand.

I saw that she tried to understand; when she failed, I had failed also.

The flower was dead; what use then to cherish or to water it?
I had not thought it was dead, but had prayed that, faded and choked though it were, yet it might find life in the sunshine of my love and the water of her tears.