hat she was fallen, proffering unloved caresses to
the wife who had spurned him in prosperity. The sore spots upon his
vanity began to burn; once more, his anger assumed the carriage of a
hostile generosity; he would utterly forgive indeed; he would help,
save, and comfort his unloving wife; but all with distant self-denial,
imposing silence on his heart, respecting Seraphina's disaffection as he
would the innocence of a child. So, when at length he turned a corner
and beheld the Princess, it was his first thought to reassure her of the
purity of his respect, and he at once ceased running and stood still.
She, upon her part, began to run to him with a little cry; then, seeing
him pause, she paused also, smitten with remorse, and at length, with
the most guilty timidity, walked nearly up to where he stood.

"Otto," she said, "I have ruined all!"

"Seraphina!" he cried with a sob, but did not move, partly withheld by
his resolutions, partly struck stupid at the sight of her weariness and
disorder. Had she stood silent, they had soon been locked in an embrace.
But she too had prepared herself against the interview, and must spoil
the golden hour with protestations.

"All!" she went on, "I have ruined all! But, Otto, in kindness you must
hear me--not justify, but own, my faults. I have been taught so cruelly;
I have had such time for thought, and see the world so changed. I have
been blind, stone-blind; I have let all true good go by me, and lived on
shadows. But when this dream fell, and I had betrayed you, and thought I
had killed----" She paused. "I thought I had killed Gondremark," she
said with a deep flush, "and I found myself alone, as you said."

The mention of the name of Gondremark pricked the Prince's generosity
like a spur. "Well," he cried, "and whose fault was it but mine? It was
my duty to be beside you, loved or not. But I was a skulker in the
grain, and found it easier to desert than to oppose you. I could never
learn that better part of love, to fight love's battles. But yet the
love was there. And now when this toy kingdom of ours has fallen, first
of all by my demerits, and next by your inexperience, and we are here
alone together, as poor as Job and merely a man and a woman--let me
conjure you to forgive the weakness and to repose in the love. Do not
mistake me!" he cried, seeing her about to speak, and imposing silence
with uplifted hand. "My love is changed; it is purged of any conjugal
pretension;