me beyond all earthly considerations, and your heart is great enough to
sacrifice all for the devotion of a heart that will at least be loyal,
then fly with me from this world of shame and cruelty, to some paradise
beyond the power of all who know us."

"Fly," she repeated in bewilderment, "and leave your kingdom, your
crown?"

"Oh! what is fame, what is honour," he cried, "to love like yours?
Listen, it is perfectly feasible. When I parted with my friends at Cadiz
Essex told me he would return with the fleet as soon as he could refit,
and cruise about the Azores, hoping to intercept the Spanish
treasure-fleet. He should be there at this time, and Raleigh with him.
But Raleigh purposed after aiding his friend in his enterprise to
continue his voyage to the new world, where he has planted a colony. In
Venice we can take passage with some merchant-man and join Raleigh at
Flores. Come with me, my Queen to the new world, where we will found a
new dynasty, for I can wait for my kingdom. I can write my plays and my
poems there, in some lodge in the forest, and years hence, when cities
have sprung up in that wilderness great actors will give them
presentation before men who can appreciate them, who will honour our
memory and glory that we were Americans."

She regarded him with eyes widening with alarm. "Surely you are mad,"
she said, "to throw away the Crown of France for which you have fought
so bravely."

"The crown of bay and laurel for which I am fighting has no root in
France, sweetheart, but in English soil," he replied wonderingly.

"Good God!" she cried, "then you are not--not Henry of Navarre?"

"Nay, how could that be possible? I am, as I long since told you, only a
simple English playwright who, much against his will, came hither on the
business of his friend the Earl of Essex. If you love me not I would to
God that I had never so come, since, by some strange delusion, I have
troubled your pure heart and have brought upon myself grief, and
dishonour.

"But forgive me, sweet lady, this madness shall be as though it had not
been, soon forgotten by you and safely hidden in the deepest chamber of
my heart."

For a moment she gazed at him astounded, for her mind refused to credit
the truth. In despite of his words she believed that he was putting her
disinterestedness to a supreme test which she must not fail. She clung
to him convulsively. "I love you, you alone," she declared, "and I will
go to El Dorado. I