And as for her brother, the madcap Roquairol, who in his thirteenth year had shot at himself with suicidal intent because the little Countess Linda de Romeiro, Albano’s father’s ward, had turned her back upon him, could our hero’s admiration be withheld from a youth of his own age who already possessed all the accomplishments and had tasted all the passions?

When Albano entered Pestitz, eager that his dreams of love and friendship should be realised, the aged Prince of Hohenfliess had just departed this life, and Liana, intimate friend of the Princess Julienne, daughter of the dead prince, was smitten with temporary blindness, due to emotion and consequent headache.  Albano first beheld her in the garden of her father, the minister, standing in the glimmer of the moon.  The blest youth saw irradiated the young, open, still Mary’s-brow, and the delicate proportions, which, like the white attire, seemed to exalt the form.  Thou too fortunate man!—­to whom the only visible goddess, Beauty, appears so suddenly, in her omnipotence!

Ah, why must a deep, cold cloud steal through this pure and lofty heaven?

The inauguration of the new prince was held—­of the enfeebled Prince Luigi—­upon whose expected speedy decease the neighbouring princely house of Haarkaar founded its hopes of acquiring the dominions of Hohenfliess.  It was on the night of an inauguration ball that Albano, having poured out his heart to Roquairol in a letter, met his long-hoped-for friend, and sealed their affections by declaring that he would never wed Linda de Romeiro, whom it was thought Count Gaspard had designed for his son’s bride, and for whom Roquairol’s youthful passion had not been extinguished.

When Liana recovered her sight, she was sent to Bluemenbuhl for restoration of health—­to the home of Albano’s foster-father, the provincial-director Wehrfritz.  Thither often came Albano; thither also came Roquairol, to bask in the wondering admiration that Rabette, Albano’s foster-sister, bestowed on him with all the fervour of her innocent rural mind.  Albano’s dream was fulfilled; he loved Liana in realty as he had loved her in imagination.  Roquairol thought he loved Rabette; in truth, her simplicity was to this experienced conqueror of feminine hearts but a new and, for the moment, overmastering sensation.

On a glorious evening Albano and Liana stood on a sloping mountain-ridge; overhead was a heaven filled with a life-intoxicated, tumultuous creation, as the sun-god stalked away over his evening-world.  He seized Liana’s hands and pressed them wildly to his breast; flames and tears suffused his eyes and his cheeks, and he stammered, “Liana, I love thee!”

She stepped back, and drew her white veil over her face.

“Wouldst thou love the dead?” she said.

He knew her meaning.  Her friend Caroline, whom she had loved and who had died, had appeared in a vision, and announced that she would die in the next year.