"Yes, say that we shall fail. I will not count
On aught but being faithful. . . .
I will seek nothing but to shun base joy.
The saints were cowards who stood by to see
Christ crucified. They should have thrown themselves
Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain.
The grandest death, to die in vain, for love
Greater than rules the courses of the world.
Such death shall be my bridegroom. . . .
Oh love! you were my crown. No other crown
Is aught but thorns on this poor woman's brow."

In this spirit she goes forth to meet her doom, faithfulness thenceforth
the one aim and struggle of her life--faithfulness to be maintained under
the pressure of such anguish of blighted love and stricken hope as only
natures so pure, tender, and deep can know--faithfulness clung to with
but the calmer steadfastness when the last glimmer of mere hope is gone.

The successive scenes in the Gypsy camp with Juan, with her father, and
with the Gypsy girl Hinda, bring before us at once the intensity of her
suffering and the depth of her steadfastness. Trembling beneath the
burden laid upon her,--laid on her by no will of another, but by the
earnestness of her own humanity,--we see her seeking through Juan
whatever of possible comfort can come through tidings of him she has
left; in the strong and noble nature of her father, the consolation of at
least hoping that her sacrifice shall not be all in vain; and in Hinda's
untutored, instinctive faithfulness to her name and race, support to her
own resolve. But no pressure of her suffering, no despondency as to the
result of all, no thought of the lonely life before her, filled evermore
with those yearnings toward the past and the vanished, can turn her back