ainst the foreign ships we
once tried to keep out of our harbor. Carlina--the old Carlina, your
Carlina and mine, is no more."

She paused at the look of horror which had crept over his withered
face. She dropped her hand to his arm.

"Do I sound disloyal? It is only because the kingdom remains as it
used to be in your dear heart and yours alone. I am your queen,
General, because you are still in the past. But the others are not.
They are of the present and to them I am only a tradition. If they
were all like you, my heart and soul, my life and love would all be
theirs. It is to save what is left of the former things--to save you
and the few others of that old kingdom--to have our dear Carlina as we
used to have it out there in the sunshine of the garden--that I would
leave this turmoil before it is too late."

The white head drooped as she spoke,--drooped low over the wrinkled
hands clasped upon the jeweled sword handle. Dreams--dreams that had
seemed about to come true in these his later years now faded before
his misty eyes. He had thought to see, before he died, the glory of
the former times returned; and now his queen was the first to call
them dead. For the moment he felt himself as solitary as one returned
from the grave. But, as she had said, if there were more like
Otaballo, the kingdom would still be, without all this strife. His
stubborn thoughts refused to march into the present. He raised his
head again, still a general of Carlina.

"Your Majesty," he said, "there is but one way in which a servant of
the house of Montferaldo may save himself."

And clicking his heels together, he had turned with military precision
and left her. Then she had tossed the night long, dreaming horrible
things. Now she sat in her private apartments staring with troubled
eyes over the sunlit grounds. So an hour passed, when without warning,
the door snapped open, closed, and she looked up, startled, to see
Danbury himself.

Her breath was cut off as though her heart had been stopped, as when
one thrusts in a finger and halts a clock. There was the same dead
silence that closes in upon the cessation of the long-continued
ticking--a silence as though the whole world paused a moment to
listen. He limped across the room to her side. She saw that his hair
was dishevelled, his coat torn, as though he had been in a struggle.
Then his arms closed about her and she felt a great sense of safety,
of relief, as though everything had s