her disposition, and as Pyramus not only loved but esteemed her, it was
repugnant to his feelings to watch her. Yet when, nevertheless, he once
followed her steps, he had found her, according to her expressed
intention, among other women in St. Gudule's Cathedral. Her eyes, which
he watched intently, were constantly turned toward the great personages
whose presence adorned the festival--the Emperor and Queen Mary of
Hungary.

These expeditions were evidently not to meet a lover, yet from that hour
he cherished a conviction, mingled with a bitter sense of resentment,
that she went to the festivals which his Majesty attended in order to see
the man whom she had once loved, and whose image even now she could not
wholly efface from her imagination, perhaps also from her heart.

For her manner to the children, on the contrary, he could find no
plausible explanation. Her love for them was unmistakable. Yet what was
the meaning of the compassionate manner with which she treated them,
talked to them, spoke of them, until it nearly drove him frantic? She
often treated the healthy, merry older boy as if he was ill and needed
comfort, and the pretty infant in the cradle was addressed in the same
way.

If he summoned up his courage and openly reproved her, she always
answered in general terms, such as: "What do you mean? Are we not all
born to suffer?" or, "Shall we envy them because they have entered life
to endure pain and to die?"

Not until Pyramus, with sorrowful emotion, entreated her not to speak of
the children as if they had been given to them for a punishment and not
for a joy, she imposed a certain degree of constraint upon herself and