stioning "Well?"

Brilliana still seemed to hesitate. That word "honor" had frightened
her for Evander, had frightened her for herself. She now groped
uncertain, who thought to tread so surely.

"Will you do as I wish if I tell you?" she asked, trying to mask
anxiety with a jesting manner. And when Evander responded gravely,
"If I can," she pressed him impetuously again.

"Nay, now, make me a square promise." She looked very fair as she
pleaded.

"All that a doomed man can do--" Evander replied, smiling somewhat
wistfully.

Brilliana shook her head vehemently and her Royalist curls danced
round her bright cheeks.

"You are no doomed man unless you choose," she asserted, hotly.
Evander moved a step nearer to her.

"What do you mean?" he asked. Brilliana was panting now. He knew she
had somewhat to say, and newly found it hard in the saying. She
spoke.

"His Majesty the King will grant you your life." Her words and looks
told him temptingly that "your life" meant also "my life" to her.

"On what condition?"

He knew there must be a condition, knew that the condition troubled
Brilliana. She answered him swiftly.

"Oh, no condition at all." There came a catch in her voice and then
she ran on:

"Or almost none. All his Majesty asks is that you refrain from taking
any further part in this unhappy war."

She paused and eyed him. Evander's face was unchanged.

"No more than that?" he commented, so quietly that, reassured, she
rippled on, volubly:

"No more than that. We can be wed, dear love. We can go away together
to France, Italy, where you please. I have always had a mind to see
Italy. And when England is quiet again we can come home, come here
and be happy."

She felt as if she were flinging herself at his feet, shamelessly
offering herself, to tempt him, to dazzle him, conquer him that way;
to witch his promise out of him before he had time to think. Yet for
all her vehemence there was a chill at her heart and a cloud seemed
to hover over her sunny words. Unwillingly she looked away from him,
but she held out her hands in appeal.

"Hush, Brilliana!"

The grave, sweet voice sounded on her ears as the knell of hope. But
she faced him again with a useless, questioning glance.

"Why talk of what cannot be?" Evander asked, sadly.

Brilliana denied him feverishly.

"What can be--what must be!" she cried. "The King has promised."

"I am a soldier of the Parliament," Evander asserted. "I cannot
aba