off with a short laugh. "After all," he added, "of course, as
you say, you couldn't do it."

Benton shook his head. "No," he said, "I couldn't do it."

Again Karyl paced back and forth, and again he stopped, facing the
American.

"Benton, it is hard for two men to talk in this fashion. Perhaps no two
other men ever did. I find myself a jailer to the woman I love--Oh, yes,
I am also imprisoned by Royalty but that does not alter matters." The
voice shook. The gauntleted hands were tightly gripped, but the speaker
went steadily on. "And you love her!"

For an instant Benton looked at the other, hesitant. Then realizing the
unquestionable sincerity with which the King spoke, he answered with
equal frankness.

"Pagratide--over there--I thought I could enter Paradise. I did look
into Paradise. Then I had to set my face back again to the desert--and
in the desert one has only memory and hunger and thirst."

"Yours is hunger and thirst--yes!" exclaimed the King of Galavia. "But
mine is the hunger and thirst of Tantalus."

There was a low pained exclamation from the balcony and both men wheeled
in recognition of the voice and the shadow that divided the band of
light in the doorway.

The Queen stood on the low sill and though her head and figure were only
sketched in shade against the tempered luminance at her back her
exclamation told them that she had heard. She stood in the unbroken
sweep of her Court gown. Her slim hands gripped the ermine which fell
from her shoulders to the floor and slowly crushed it between clenched
fingers. About her head the light touched her hair into a soft nimbus.

Karyl stepped impetuously forward and held out his hand to lead her into
the garden. Benton, who had involuntarily started toward the balcony at
the first sight of her, caught his lip in his teeth and halted where he
stood.

The girl remained for a moment, astonished at the sight of the two men,
incredulous of what she had heard.

She had slipped away for a moment of respite from the fatiguing
requirements of the ball-room. She had come here because she had felt
sure that here she could be alone. She had come, driven by the prompting
of her heart, to look out to the Mediterranean and wonder where, between
its gates at Gibraltar and Suez, Benton might at that moment be. And
from the balcony she had seen him in the garden and had heard a part of
this talk before the spell of her astounded muteness broke into
exclamation.

"