a play he knew came into his mind, lines
uttered by a king who, like himself, had known the horror of civil
war, lines which said that it were better to be a shepherd and tend
sheep than to be an English king. He sighed and his handsome head
drooped upon his breast, and the brown hair that was graying so fast
hid his cheeks. His eyes were wet and he could not see the map; it
was all a blur of meaningless criss-cross lines. This would not do;
he must think, he must plan, he must decide; but his head remained
bent and the map remained a criss-cross puzzle.

The image of himself, which faced him as he sat, that picture of a
king, royal, joyous, unchallenged, seemed to move a little, as if
the bright figure on the canvas sought to approach and reassure the
dejected man who crouched over the map of a divided kingdom. It did
move, the serene Van Dyck portrait; it moved a little, and a little,
and a little more; moved sideway as a door moves, yawned a foot of
space between frame and wall, and through that foot of space
Brilliana slipped into the room.

"Your Majesty," she said, softly.

The King gave a little start as he lifted his head and looked at her.
She thought she had never seen so pitifully a weary face as the face
of her King, and her heart ached for him, but it ached most for her
lover.

Charles rose to his feet, flawlessly courteous, much wondering.

"How did you come here, mistress?" he asked, and she sighed at the
tired sound of his voice. "I understood from Sir Rufus that you were
for the time--"

He paused, and Brilliana calmly finished the sentence.

"Confined to my apartments. Yes, that was Rufus's plan. But though
Rufus calls himself captain of this castle he does not know it so
well as I do. There are ways of getting hither and thither that he
does not dream of."

"You are a determined young woman," the King said, with a faint
smile, "if you think so lightly of the privacy of your King."

Brilliana flung herself on her knees in a moment, her hands clasped,
her eyes shining with honest tears.

"Your Majesty!" she cried; "your Majesty, I would never have dared
this if I were not a woman very deep in love, if my lover were not in
danger, and if--"

She paused.

"And if?" Charles echoed, his fine, irresolute face neither smiling
nor frowning. "Finish your sentence, lady."

"And if I had not heard that your Majesty was a very perfect, true
lover," Brilliana went on. "Your Majesty's love for the