Equally and profoundly characteristic is the position he mentally takes up with regard to the Gypsy chief, as well as Fedalma herself.  Not simply or primarily from mere arrogance of rank does he assume it as a certainty that he has but to find Fedalma to win her back to his side; that he has but to lay before Zarca the offer of his rank, wealth, and influence on behalf of the outcast race, to win him to forego his purpose and to surrender the daughter whom he has called to the same lofty aim.  It is because of the impossibility, swayed and tossed by the self-will of passion as he is, of his rising to the height of their nobleness; the impossibility of his realising natures so possessed by a great, heroic, self-devoting thought, that hope, joy, happiness become of little or no account in the scale, and even what is called success dwindles into insignificance, or fades away altogether from regard.

The first betrayal of his trust, the first fall from truth and honour, has been accomplished.  Conscience has begun to succumb to self—­self under the guise of Fedalma and the overmastering self-will which refuses to resign his claim upon her.  He has secretly deserted his post, transferring to another’s hands the trust which was his, and only his.  A slight offence it may appear—­a mere error of judgment swayed by devoted love—­to leave for a day or two when no danger seems specially impending, and to leave in the hands of the trusted and loving friend the charge committed to him.  A slight offence, but it has been done in direct violation of conscience, and so in practical abnegation of God.  Therefore the flood-gate is opened, and all sweeps swiftly, resistlessly, remedilessly on towards catastrophe.

The tender beauty of the brief scene with Fedalma is for her overcast, and hope, the highest hope, dies out within her, when she knows that her lover, in apparent faithfulness to her, has been false to himself.  From that hour for her,

   “Our joy is dead, and only smiles on us,
   A loving shade from out the place of tombs.”

Then comes the interposition of the Gypsy chief, Fedalma’s sweet sad steadfastness to her “high allegiance, higher than our love;” the brief moment of suspense, when

   “His will was prisoner to the double grasp
   Of rage and hesitancy;”—­

and then before the stormful revulsion of baffled and despairing passion all else is swept away, and there only survives in the self-clouded mind and soul the fixed resolve to secure that which for him has come to overmaster all allegiance.  Strange and sad beyond all description are the sophistries under which the sinner strives to veil his sin,—­by which to silence that still small voice which will not be hushed amid all that inward moil.  Fedalma’s earnest pleadings with his better self, Zarca’s calm, pitying, almost sorrowful scorn—­

“Our poor faith
Allows not rightful choice save of the right
Our birth has made for us”—­