He thought all loveliness was lovelier,
She crowning it; all goodness credible,
Because of that great trust her goodness bred.

His love gave a delicious content and melody to his day dreams.

                      O, all comforters,
  All soothing things that bring mild ecstasy,
  Came with her coming, in her presence lived. 
  Spring afternoons, when delicate shadows fall
  Pencilled upon the grass; high summer morns
  When white light rains upon the quiet sea
  And cornfields flush with ripeness; odors soft—­
  Dumb vagrant bliss that seems to seek a home
  And find it deep within ’mid stirrings vague
  Of far-off moments when our life was fresh;
  All sweetly tempered music, gentle change
  Of sound, form, color, as on wide lagoons
  At sunset when from black far-floating prows
  Comes a clear wafted song; all exquisite joy
  Of a subdued desire, like some strong stream
  Made placid in the fulness of a lake—­
  All came with her sweet presence, for she brought
  The love supreme which gathers to its realm
  All powers of loving.  Subtle nature’s hand
  Waked with a touch the far-linked harmonies
  In her own manifold work.  Fedalma there,
  Fastidiousness became the prelude fine
  For full contentment; and young melancholy,
  Lost for its origin, seemed but the pain
  Of waiting for that perfect happiness.

So strong was Don Silva’s love, so ardent his passion for Fedalma, that he forsook all duties and social obligations and became a Zincala for her sake.  Yet once awakened to the real consequences of his act, he killed Zarca and sought to regain by hard penances his lost knighthood.

With Fedalma also love was an absorbing passion.  The passionate devotion of a woman is in her words.

  No ills on earth, though you should count them up
  With grains to make a mountain, can outweigh
  For me his ill who is my supreme love. 
  All sorrows else are but imagined flames,
  Making me shudder at an unfelt smart;
  But his imagined sorrow is a fire
  That scorches me.

With great earnestness she says she will—­

  Never forsake that chief half of her soul
  Where lies her love.

With what depth of love does she utter these words: 

  I belong to him who loves me—­whom I love—­
  Who chose me—­whom I chose—­to whom I pledged
  A woman’s truth.  And that is nature too,
  Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth.

Though her love is deep and passionate and full of a woman’s devotedness, the mark of race is set deep within her soul.  The moment the claim of race is brought clearly before her as the claim of duty, as the claim of father and of kindred, she accepts it.  Her love is not thrown hastily aside, for she loves deeply and truly, and it tears her heart in sunder to renounce it; but she is faithful to duty.  Her love grows not less, loses none of its hold upon her heart.