Fame: The new friend.

The whole camp was ringing with the deeds of Lorraine. The days of Roland were revived. Old and young, officers and soldiery conversed only of the youthful hero who had already won for himself the title of “the bravest of the brave.” Not only in his first battle, but in every successive engagement, Lorraine had achieved wonders. He had already been promoted through several grades; general officers and titled princes courted his society; and, as if by an enchanter’s wand, in less than a year from the opening of his career as a soldier, the name of the unknown page was ringing in every capital of Europe. Oh! how delicious was it for him to know that Isabel heard of his deeds, and that though she might not love, she could not pity him. No, he had saved himself from that. His vow had been fulfilled. He had become renowned.

A strange friendship had sprung up between Lorraine and him whom he had rescued. The grateful De Courtenay had sought the intimacy of his preserver in such a way as could not be refused, and though it was, at first, agony for Lorraine to be the confidant of his rival, yet he could not avoid it without insulting his new friend, or exposing his own hopeless love. But the former course he scorned: and to the latter alternative he could not listen. He was forced, therefore, to endure in silence that, which, like the vulture of Prometheus, was eating out his vitals. Daily did De Courtenay pour into his ear his tale of love, thinking that as the relative of Isabel, Lorraine would sympathise with his long continued separation, and join in the praises of his mistress; but little did the generous young nobleman know of the agony he was thus inflicting upon his new friend.

Meantime the war continued. Siege after siege, and battle after battle marked the conquering career of the allies, and in every brilliant action the deeds of the young hero shone forth with unabated lustre. In the hottest of the conflict, heading the assault or leading a charge, Lorraine was ever to be found, seeming to bear a charmed life.

Yet the cheek of the young hero grew thinner daily, and amid all his splendid and rapidly increasing renown, it was plain that his unquiet spirit was tossing to and fro within him, and wearing out his very existence. His brow grew darker as if with long years of care; his eye burned with a deep, restless, almost wild brilliancy; and his port became prouder and prouder, for he grew more lofty as the struggle with himself became fiercer. Yes! the contest was still waged against his unhappy love,—how hopelessly, let others in the same situation tell.

His was not the love of days, or weeks, or months, but of years: his was not an evanescent feeling of admiration, but the deep, fathomless passion of one whose whole soul was consumed by his love. How could he conquer such an emotion? No, he might fly from Isabel, but could he fly from himself? His love had become a part of his being: it was his sustenance, his life.

It was after a hard contested battle, in which his corps had distinguished itself unusually, and he had turned the tide of war on one wing by his own valor and influence, that his sovereign filled up the measure of his renown, by reviving in his person, an honor long disused, and creating him a knight banneret upon the field of conflict.

“Rise, Sir Henry Lorraine,” said the monarch, as, surrounded by a brilliant cortÈge, he waved his hand for the kneeling knight to arise, “you have this day won a name far more imperishable than the title I have bestowed upon you. Were a tithe of the gentlemen of my realm like you, England would have a Bayard or a Roland for every knight’s fee.”

Such a compliment, from the lips of a phlegmatic sovereign, placed the finishing stone on the renown of Lorraine. He was henceforth without a rival. Courted by the titled; adored by his fellow soldiers; and smiled on by the young and beautiful; what farther had this world to bestow upon him? Alas! all these brought him no happiness. To Lorraine they were but empty shadows, for they could not give him the love of his cousin.

“Ah! how will Isabel rejoice to hear of this,” said De Courtenay, the day after the young hero’s knighthood, “you and she were playmates in childhood, you know, and it will please her all the more that I too love you. I wonder why she says nothing of you in her letters, but then—.” De Courtenay paused. Even the happy lover felt that it would not do to say how wholly a mistress forgets in her missives all but the object of her adoration.

Lorraine could not reply. His brow throbbed to bursting, and he turned away. Yet he did not betray himself. Never had De Courtenay suspected that his friend loved Isabel; and Lorraine vowed in his inmost heart that he never should.

And thus time rolled on, and day by day, and week by week, and month by month, the renown of the young soldier increased, while the blight at his heart grew more venomous and deadly. He loved in vain. Often in the still watches of the night, when the camp lay buried in silence around him, and the holy stars looked down like guardian angels on the world below, he would stand for hours, gazing on the hushed landscape around, and wandering, in thought, back to the time when he stood at the side of Isabel, and together they gazed up upon the starry sky, or listened to the low whisper of the night-wind across the firmament, while their hearts held high communion, as if linked in with each other by some mysterious sympathy. Alas! those days were gone forever. Alone Lorraine gazed up at the sky, while Isabel perhaps thought of him no more.