--the woman you
say you love."

Robert waved her words away disdainfully, peevishly.

"I cannot marry you."

Perpetua's cheeks paled and her lips quivered a little, and her eyes
were moist beneath their lowered lids, but she answered him as firmly as
before and more sadly.

"Good-bye, then. I am not sorry you came, for I cherish sweet thoughts
of you, but I shall be glad to see you go."

She turned as if to glide into the woods, but Robert stayed her, calling
to her in a voice of loud command.

"I will not lose you!" he cried. "If I cannot win you as the simple
hunter, I will command you as the King. I am Robert of Sicily."

As he spoke he slipped the green mantle from his arms and shoulders,
flung it from him, and stood before her in the royal garments of the
King. Perpetua gazed in astonishment at the rich habit, at splendor such
as she had never seen.

"You are the King?" she whispered.

[Illustration: "I AM ROBERT OF SICILY"]

Robert answered proudly, confident now of reward.

"I am, indeed, the King."

Perpetua looked on him with the same fearless honor wherewith she would
have faced some monster in the forest.

"If you are the King, what have you to do with me?" she asked.

Robert answered her joyously, passionately.

"You shall be my loveliest mistress now, my loveliest memory forever."
But even as he spoke the fire in his blood was chilled by the scorn and
wrath in Perpetua's eyes.

"God pity and God pardon you," she prayed. "You are called Robert the
Bad by honest men. Be called so always by clean women!" Her outstretched
right hand seemed to hurl her imprecation into his brain. Blind fury
seized upon him.

"You play the fool with me!" he said, and advanced upon her only to
recoil as she slipped her hand to her girdle and drew the long, keen
knife that rested there.

"Keep away from me!" she warned him. "For I am strong and young, and I
might kill you." Her face was pitifully pale now in its great sorrow,
but the determination in her eyes menaced more than steel.

"I think I could master you," Robert sneered, but he kept his place,
watching her.

"Then you should kill me," Perpetua sighed. "And that might be best, for
you have destroyed my beautiful dream."

She turned as she spoke, and, casting her weapon from her, to fall upon
the soft grass, she ran into the wood. For a moment the King stood
still, stupidly conscious of the humming of the bees, stupidly staring
after the flying c