ersuasion, "I may
not linger longer. If there be a way in which I may serve thy mother,
the Countess--ere I take my leave----?"

She shook her head for answer, pulling impatiently at the orchids which
she had gathered up again; they seemed akin to her--half elfin flowers.

"Or if there be some message of farewell for Her Majesty?"

Again she shook her head, in emphatic denial; but she was conscious that
the Bernardini still lingered, although he had taken a few steps away
from her: and looking up she saw that he was watching her in keen
disappointment. Suddenly her cheek flamed, for his look was both
compassionate and reproachful, yet despite her anger, she thought him
more than ever noble while she struggled to repress the half-conscious
feeling within her that dumbly answered to his appeal.

"She hath been merciful and forgiven much," he urged, in a tone that was
still compassionate toward Ecciva herself; "she hath suffered much
because of the grief for thy mother and thyself--and because she might
not lighten the penance. Is there no little word of farewell for her?"

Dama Ecciva tossed away her flowers, and rose indignantly:

"I _have_ a message for Her Majesty," she said in quick, hard tones.
"Tell her I thank her for"--she glanced about the chamber as if summing
up its comforts and elegance--"for her flowers. Tell her that the de
Montferrats come of a noble house, well nigh as old as the Lusignans;
that of our elder branch came a queen of Cyprus. Tell her that if I know
not how to thank her for that she hath decreed banishment for a noble of
our ancient house--she who hath lived in our land of Cyprus these _few
years of her little life_--if I lack the grace to be so good a
courtier--yet I humbly thank her for--these orchids--which might have
sprung from some mouldering trunk in a forgotten corner of my estates.
They mind me of the days before _she_ came to Cyprus."

She crushed them angrily beneath her foot as she spoke, and her words
stormed upon him.

As he would have answered her, she broke in with more hot words.

"Tell her that I shall not lose my color in exile; it will not cure me
of my _crime of loyalty_ to my people--I cannot change my faith--tell
her----"

But he interrupted gravely:

"Thou dost wrong thyself and her: knowing well that thy 'crime' is not
'of loyalty to thy people'; but that thou couldst _profess_ a loyalty
which was but pretence to the Queen who held thy vows of fealty."

S