nestled against his shoulder, soothed and at peace. While
Duty had manacled the queen, the woman had been justified. Then she
sighed. With a weary gesture of renunciation she sat upright in her
saddle, looking directly to the front. A single tear hung quivering on
her lashes.

"Another dream for the Queen to sigh over," she commented with a quick
laugh, flavored of wormwood.

"Why must it be?" he queried. "You do not love the King." Then all the
tide of courage flooding past his lips, he asserted against all
denial,--"You love me."

The regal head drooped as she turned from him.

"'I would not love you, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more,'"

she quoted sadly.

"But it is not honor; it is sacrifice," he argued.

"What duty is not?" she questioned sadly.

"It is madness," he fumed impotently.

"Think of my people." She shook her head in magnificent self-abnegation,
putting aside the tenderer visions which were thronging her heart,
picturing her life with the man at her side. "Their welfare demands it."

He leaned across to plead with her. The loose flying tresses of her hair
touched his cheeks in elusive salute. They beckoned him closer and ever
closer. His heart could be heard, he feared, so loudly did it beat. He
could feel the great red surges being pumped through arteries, too small
for their impulsive torrents. They choked him.

"Trusia," he cried hoarsely, for the first time using her Christian
name. The entire soul of the man, every particle of his entity, had
entered into the saying of that name.

Startled, she turned to learn the reason for his vehemence; that voice
had spoken so compellingly to her eyes, ears, heart and body, and had
sought out every resistance and overcome it. Her eyes, held captive to
his gaze, were wide with question.

"I love you," he continued with quiet masterfulness, as one who, staking
all on one throw of the dice, dispenses with pretense and braggadocio
in the face of despair. "Listen to me. I would make you happy. I'd be
your devoted slave, till white-haired, aged and blissful, life should
pass from us gently as the echoes of a happy song of spring."

"You make it so hard for me," she said pleadingly.

"Forgive me, sweetheart, but love will not be denied," he answered. "Let
the King have Krovitch, and you come with me." His face was close to
hers, his heart was slowly, strongly closing on her own fluttering
heart.

She felt that, unless she could at once thr