ce singularly free from agitation. "Because I am the only
man who has served you unselfishly? Is that the reason, Madame? You have
laughed at me. I love you. You have broken me. I love you. I can never
look an honest man in the face again. I love you. Though the shade of
my father should rise to accuse me, still would I say that I love you.
Madame, will you find another love like mine, the first love of a man
who will know no second? Forgive me if I rejoice in your despair, for
your despair is my hope. As a queen you would be too far away; but in
your misfortune you come so near! Madame, I shall follow you wherever
you go to tell you that I love you. You will never be able to shut your
ears to my voice; far or near, you will always hear me saying that I
love you. Ambition soars but a little way; love has no fetters. Madame,
your lips were given to me. Can you forget that?"

"Monsieur, what do you wish?" subdued by the fervor of his tones.

"You! nothing in the world but you."

"Princesses such as I am do not wed for love. What! you take advantage
of my misfortune, the shattering of my dreams, to force your love upon
me?"

"Madame," the pride of his race lighting his eyes, "confess to me that
you did not win my love to play with it. If my heart was necessary to
your happiness, which lay in these shattered dreams, tell me, and I will
go. My love is so great that it does not lack generosity."

For reply she sorted the papers and extended a blood-stained packet
toward him. "Here, Monsieur, are your consols." But the moment his hand
touched them, she made as though to take them back. On the top of
the packet was the letter she had written to him, and on which he had
written his scornful reply to her. She paled as she saw him unfold it.

"So, Madame, my love was a pastime?" He came close to her, and his look
was like an invisible hand bearing down on her. "Madame, I will go."

"No, no!" she cried, yielding to the impulse which suddenly laid hold
of her. "Not you! You shall not misjudge me. No, not you! Those consols
were given to me by the woman of your guide, Kopf, who found them no one
knows how. They were given to me this morning. That letter..... I did
not intend that you should see it. No, Monsieur; you shall not misjudge
the woman, however you judge the princess. Forgive me, it was not the
woman who sought your love; it was the princess who had need of it.

"I thought it would be but a passing fancy. I did not dr