are real! You are real!" she whispered, looking into his eyes, her
gauntleted hands holding his face between them.

"Cara," he begged, "listen to me. It's my last plea. You said in the
letter I have in my pocket--there where your heart is beating--that you
could not refuse me if I came again. Dear, this is 'again.' The _Isis_
is a speck out there at sea awaiting a signal. Will you go? I have no
throne to offer, but--"

"Don't," she cried, holding a hand over his lips. "For a minute--just
for a little golden minute--let us forget thrones." Then as the furrow
came back between her brows: "Oh, boy, it's my destiny to be always
strong enough to resist happiness when I might have it by being less
strong, and always too weak to bear bravely what must be borne--when it
can't be helped."

He stood silent.

After a moment she went on. "And I love you. Ah, you know that well
enough, but up there beyond your head which I love, I see the green and
white and blue flag of Galavia which I hate, and destiny commands me to
be disloyal to you for loyalty to it. On the eve of life imprisonment,"
she went on, clinging to him, "I have stolen away to play truant perhaps
for the last time--still craving freedom, longing for you; and now I
find freedom, and you, just to lose you again! I can't--I can't--yes--I
can--I will!"

Suddenly he held her off at arms' length and looked at her with a
strange wide-eyed expression of discovery.

"But," he cried with the vehemence of a sudden thought, "you are up
here--safe! Safe, whatever happens down there! Nothing that occurs there
can affect you!"

"Safe, of course," she spoke wonderingly. "What danger is there?"

The man turned. "For God's sake--let me think a moment!" He dropped on
the pine needles and sat with his hands covering his face and his
fingers pressed into his temples. She came over.

"Does that prevent your thinking?" she softly asked, dropping on her
knees at his side and letting one hand rest on his shoulder.

For moments, lengthening into minutes, he sat immovable, fighting back
the agonized and torrential flood of thought which burst upon him with
unwarned temptation. The danger was not after all a danger to the woman
he loved, but a menace to his enemy. She was safe three thousand feet
above the threatening city. He had only to hold his hand, perhaps, for a
half-hour; had only to keep her here and let matters follow their
course.

He was not entertaining the thought, exc