re of hope flickered
higher in her heart as she came down the steps and ran eagerly to meet
him. He was but a withered fool, but still he was a man and might have
pity, might have generosity, might have courage.

"Help me," she cried, holding out her hands to him. To her surprise the
thing she took to be the fool Diogenes advanced as eagerly to her.

"You are free, Perpetua," he cried. "Free, if you will be my queen."

Perpetua recoiled. "Your queen?" she gasped, but Robert gave her no
chance of further speech, for he went on hotly, whipping his blood with
the recital of his wrongs.

"Traitors have taken my throne, traitors have stolen my crown; traitors
bar the gates of my palace in my face and laugh at me through the bars;
there is a false king in Syracuse, but he shall not usurp unchallenged."

Perpetua's heart grew cold. "Heaven help me," she thought in her
despair, as she watched the wild gestures and listened to the wild words
of her companion. "He is crazed beyond all cure."

Robert, in the midst of his vehemence, saw the sorrow in her face, saw
that she moved away as he advanced to her.

"Why do you shrink from me?" he asked. "I mean you no ill. You shall be
queen; I swear you shall be queen. Come with me," and he held out his
hand with an air of royal condescension which contrasted ridiculously
enough with his grotesque outside. Perpetua turned away from him with a
little moan. "Alas, poor wretch," she sighed, her pity for his plight
for the moment overpowering her sense of her own peril. Robert did not
catch her words, but he saw her trouble and wondered at it.

"What do you fear?" he questioned, tenderly. "I am the King."

Perpetua clasped her hands together in an agony of compassion for the
unhappy fool, and for herself, more helpless and alone through his
coming.

"Dear Heaven," she prayed, "help me to mend this madness."

"Do you still shun me?" Robert asked, angrily, fretted by the girl's
resistance. "Am I young, smooth, strong, comely to so little purpose? Is
it a light thing to be a king like me?"

Perpetua listened to his ravings in despair. It seemed so horrible to
see the ugly fool stand there mouthing his own praises, his kingship. As
she shrank from him, her averted eyes fell on the silver mirror which
Lycabetta had left lying upon her couch. A sudden wild hope came into
Perpetua's mind. Though the man's brain might be moonstruck, his eyes
might still be honest, and a glance might brin