It was the song of the Princess.

She hesitated a moment, and half closed the book.  Had he been standing where he could see her face, he would have been shocked by its pallor.  It was over directly:  she recovered herself, and, opening the music with a resolute air, began to sing:—­

“Ask me no more:  the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain and of cape;
But, O too fond, when have I answered thee? 
Ask me no more.

“Ask me no more:  what answer should I give? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye;
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live: 
Ask me no more.”

She sang thus far with a clear, untrembling voice,—­so clear and untrembling as to be almost metallic,—­the restraint she had put upon herself making it unnatural.  At the commencement she had estimated her strength, and said, “It is sufficient!” but she had overtaxed it, as she found in singing the last verse:—­

“Ask me no more:  thy fate and mine are sealed;
I strove against the stream and all in vain;
Let the great river take me to the main;
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield: 
Ask me no more.”

All the longing, the passion, the prayer of which a human soul is capable found expression in her voice.  It broke through the affected coldness and calm, as the ocean breaks through its puny barriers when, after wind and tempest, all its mighty floods are out.  Surrey had changed his place, and stood fronting her.  As the last word fell, she looked at him, and the two faces saw in each but a reflection of the same passion and pain:  pallid, with eyes burning from an inward fire,—­swayed by the same emotion,—­she bent forward as he, stretching forth his arms, in a stifling voice cried, “Come!”

Bent, but for an instant; then, by a superhuman effort, turned from him, and put out her hand with a gesture of dissent, though she could not control her voice to speak a word.

At that he came close to her, not touching her hand or even her dress, but looking into her face with imploring eyes, and whispering, “Francesca, my darling, speak to me! say that you love me! one word!  You are breaking my heart!”

Not a word.

“Francesca!”

She had mastered her voice.  “Go!” she then said, beseechingly.  “Oh, why did you ask me? why did I let you come?”

“No, no,” he answered.  “I cannot go,—­not till you answer me.”

“Ah!” she entreated, “do not ask!  I can give no such answer as you desire.  It is all wrong,—­all a mistake.  You do not comprehend.”

“Make me, then.”

She was silent.

“Forgive me.  I am rude:  I cannot help it.  I will not go unless you say, ‘I do not love you.’  Nothing but this shall drive me away.”

Francesca’s training in her childhood had been by a Catholic governess; she never quite lost its effect.  Now she raised her hand to a little gold cross that hung at her neck, her fingers closing on it with a despairing clasp.  “Ah, Christ, have pity!” her heart cried.  “Blessed Mother of God, forgive me! have mercy upon me!”