stood leaning against the broad balustrade. They had been
fellow-conspirators sufficiently long for them to have grown to know
each other well, and the priest, so far from regarding her as an
intruder, hailed her at once as a probable ally, and endeavored to
begin again where he had ceased speaking.

"Do you not agree with me, Miss Carson?" he asked. "I am telling the
Prince that zeal is not enough, and that high ideals, unless they are
accompanied by good conduct, are futile. I want him to change, to be
more sober, more strict----"

"Oh, you must not ask me," Miss Carson said, hurriedly, smiling and
shaking her head. "We are working for only one thing, are we not?
Beyond that you know nothing of me, and I know nothing of you. I came
to hear of your visit," she continued; "am I to be told anything?" she
asked, eagerly, looking from one to the other. "It has been such an
anxious two weeks. We imagined all manner of things had happened to
you."

Kalonay laughed happily. "The Father was probably never safer in his
life," he said. "They took us to their hearts like brothers. They
might have suffocated us with kindness, but we were in no other danger."

"Then you are encouraged, Father?" she asked, turning to the priest.
"You found them loyal? Your visit was all you hoped, you can depend
upon them?"

"We can count upon them absolutely," the monk assured her. "We shall
start on our return voyage at once, in a day, as soon as his Majesty
gives the word."

"There are so many things I want to know," the girl said; "but I have
no right to ask," she added, looking up at him doubtfully.

"You have every right," the monk answered. "You have certainly earned
it. Without the help you gave us we could not have moved. You have
been more than generous----"

Miss Carson interrupted him with an impatient lifting of her head.
"That sort of generosity is nothing," she said. "With you men it is
different. You are all risking something. You are actually helping,
while I must sit still and wait. I hope, Father," she said, smiling,
"it is not wrong for me to wish I were a man."

"Wrong!" exclaimed Kalonay, in a tone of mock dismay; "of course it's
wrong. It's wicked."

The monk turned and looked coldly over his shoulder at Kalonay, and the
Prince laughed.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but we are told to be contented with our
lot," he argued, impenitently. "`He only is a slave who complains,'
and that is true