When Jane told me of this I became frightened; for the surest way to
any woman's heart is to convince her that you make her better, and
arouse in her breast purer impulses and higher aspirations. It would
be bad enough should Brandon fall in love with the princess, which was
almost sure to happen, but for them to fall in love with each other
meant Brandon's head upon the block, and Mary's heart bruised, broken
and empty for life. Her strong nature, filled to the brim with latent
passion, was the stuff of which love makes a conflagration that burns
to destruction; and should she learn to love Brandon, she would move
heaven and earth to possess him.

She whose every desire from childhood up had been gratified, whose
every whim seemed to her a paramount necessity, would stop at nothing
when the dearest wish a woman's heart can coin was to be gained or
lost. Brandon's element of prudence might help him, and might
forestall any effort on his part to win her, but Mary had never heard
of prudence, and man's caution avails but little when set against
woman's daring. In case they both should love, they were sure to try
for each other, and in trying were equally sure to find ruin and
desolation.

A few evenings after this I met the princess in the queen's
drawing-room. She beckoned me to her, and, resting her elbows on the
top of a cabinet, her chin in her hands, said: "I met your friend,
Captain Brandon, a day or two ago. Did he tell you?"

"No," I answered; "Jane told me, but he has not mentioned it."

It was true Brandon had not said a word of the matter, and I had not