rd. Perhaps--" she continued reflectively--"Ha!"
she cried suddenly, "it must be so. He wants to murder him! He intends
to steal alone to the defenceless prisoner. But woe to him if he come!
I will guard the threshold of that door as if it were a sanctuary, and
woe to him if he cross it!"

She leaned heavily against the half-door of the room, and swung the
ponderous axe.

But Rauthgundis was wrong.

Not to kill his prisoner had the Prefect taken the keys into his own
keeping.

He had gone with them in his hand to the south side of the palace,
where he gained admittance to Mataswintha's room.

The stillness of death and the excitement of fever alternated so
rapidly in Mataswintha, that Aspa could never look at her mistress
without the tears rushing to her eyes.

"Most beautiful daughter of the Germans," began the Prefect, "dissipate
the cloud which rests upon your white brow, and listen to me calmly."

"How is the King? You leave me without news. You promised to let him go
free when all was decided. You promised that he should be taken over
the Alps. You have not kept your word."

"I promised it on two conditions. You know them well, and you have not
yet done your part. Tomorrow the nephew of the Emperor will return from
Ariminum, ready to take you to Byzantium, and I desire you to give him
hopes that you will become his bride. Your marriage with Witichis was
forced and null."

"No, never! I have told you so before."

"I am sorry for it, for the sake of my prisoner, for he will not see
the light of day again until you are on the way to Byzantium with
Germanus."

"Never!"

"Do not irritate me, Mataswintha. The folly of the girl who bought the
Ares' head at such a high price, is, I think, outgrown. For that once
enamoured being has since sacrificed the Ares of the Goths to his
enemies. But if you still honour that dream of girlhood, then save the
man you once loved."

Mataswintha shook her head.

"Until now I have treated you as a free agent, as a Queen. Do
not remind me that you, as well as he, are in my power. You will
become the wife--soon the widow--of this noble Prince--and
Justinian--Byzantium--the whole world, will lie at your feet. Daughter
of the Amelungs, is it possible that you do not love power?"

"I only love---- Never!"

"Then I must force you."

She laughed.

"_You?_ Force _me_?"

"Yes, I force you! (She still loves the man she has ruined!) The second
condition is this: that the p