hange of position advised by Poluski rendered them safe from their
assailants' bullets until the door was actually off its hinges and the
furniture thrust aside. In the last resort, Alec meant to show himself
at a window and offer a fair target to the men in the houses across the
street. When he fell the shooting from that quarter would cease. Then,
acting on his precise instructions, Beaumanoir and Felix must lift Joan
through another window and allow her to drop to the pavement. It was not
far. She might escape uninjured, and there was a possibility that the
mob would spare a woman who was an utter stranger, one in no way mixed
up in Kosnovian affairs.

Time enough to take this final step when their defense was forced, and
that would be soon. In all likelihood, he had not much more than a
minute to live, and he devoted that minute to Joan.

"Sweetheart," he murmured tenderly, "you saw the beginning of my career
as a King, and it seems that you are fated to see its end. Have you
forgotten what Pallas Athene said to Perseus? It is not so long ago,
that morning in the Louvre. But why did you run away from Paris? Why
have you not written? If you knew how I hoped for a word from you! My
heart told me you loved me; but even one's heart likes to be assured
that it is not mistaken."

He was looking into her eyes. The fantasy seized her that he was able to
read her secret soul, and she swept aside any thought of concealment.
"Alec," she said, "tell me truly, are we in danger of death?"

"I am," he replied simply. It was better so, he thought.

"Then I thank God that I am here to die with you."

He dared not hint that she might escape. "We still have a remote
chance," he went on. "Let us talk of ourselves, not of death."

"But I don't want to die, Alec," she whispered brokenly. "I want to
live, dear. I want to live and be your wife. Oh, Alec, let us ask Heaven
for one year of happiness, one short year----" She choked, and the
tears so bravely repressed hitherto dimmed her glorious eyes. Her
piteous appeal increased the torment of his impotence. His face grew
marble white beneath the bronze, and he bent in mute agony over her
bowed head.

Felix, crouching behind Beaumanoir, assured himself that the King and
his chosen lady were momentarily deaf to all else than the one supreme
fact that each loved the other. He sighed, and touched the stalwart
Beaumanoir's shoulder, which he was just able to reach with uplifted
hand.