Whatever Duke Charles's reasons for making the offer of marriage may have been, they probably ceased to exist soon afterward, for he never even replied to Duke Frederick's acceptance.

For months Castle Hapsburg was in a ferment of expectancy.

A watch stood from dawn till dusk on the battlements of the keep, that the duke might be informed of the approach of the Burgundian messenger--that never came.
After a year of futile waiting the watch was abandoned.

Anger, for a time, took the place of expectancy; Duke Frederick each day drowned his ill-humor in a gallon of sour wine, and remained silent on the subject of the Burgundian insult.
Max's attitude was that of a dignified man.

He showed neither anger nor disappointment, but he kept the letter and the ring that Mary had sent him and mused upon his love for his ideal--the lady he had never seen.
A letter from Hymbercourt, that reached me nearly two years after this affair, spoke of a tender little maiden in Burgundy, whose heart throbbed with disappointment while it also clung to its ideal, as tender natures are apt to do.