for a little
while looking deep into his eyes. And though she had much need of sleep,
when she had got into the room and the door was closed behind her, she
remained staring at the logs of the fire.

For she knew his secret, and to her eyes he was now another man. Before,
Wogan was the untiring servant, the unflinching friend; now he was the
man who loved her. The risks he had run, his journeyings, his unswerving
confidence in the result, his laborious days and nights of preparation,
and the swift execution,--love as well as service claimed a share in
these. He was changed for ever to her eyes; she knew his secret. There
was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand. For she must needs think over
all that he had said and done by the new light the secret shed. When did
he first begin to care? Why? She recalled his first visit long ago to
Ohlau, when he rode across the park on his black horse charged with his
momentous errand. She had been standing, she remembered, before the
blazing log-fire in the great stone hall, much as she was standing now.
Great changes had come since then. She was James Stuart's chosen
wife--and this man loved her. He had no hope of any reward; he desired
even that she should not know. She should no doubt have been properly
sorry and compassionate, but she was a girl simple and frank. To be
loved by a man who could so endure and strive and ask no guerdon,--that
lifted her. She thought the more worthily of herself because he loved
her. She was raised thereby. She could not be sorry; her blood pulsed,
her heart sang, the starry eyes shone with a brighter light. He loved
her. She knew his secret. A little clock chimed the hour upon the
mantel-shelf, and lifting her eyes she saw that just twenty-four hours
had passed since she had driven out of Innspruck up the Brenner.

As she got into bed a horse galloped up to the inn and stopped. She
remembered that she had not ridden on his black horse out of the sunrise
across the plain. He loved her, and since he loved her, surely--She fell
asleep puzzled and wondering why. She was waked up some two hours
afterwards by a rapping on the door, and she grew hot and she recognised
Wogan's voice cautiously whispering to her to rise with all speed. For
in her dreams from which she had wakened, she had ridden across the flat
green plain into the round city of dreams.

CHAPTER XVI

When the horse galloped up to the door, the Princess turned on her side
and went