spered:

"Quinnox! He has come for me. Now to get out of your room without being
seen!"

The Princess Yetive ran to him, and, placing her hands on his shoulders,
cried with the fierceness of despair:

"You will go back to the monastery? You will leave Graustark? For my
sake--for my sake!"

He hesitated and then surrendered, his honor falling weak and faint by
the pathway of passion.

"Yes!" he cried, hoarsely.

Tap! tap! tap! at the door. Lorry took one look at the rapturous face
and released her.

"Come!" she called.

The door flew open, an attendant saluted, and in stepped--Gabriel!

XXIV. OFF TO THE DUNGEON

The tableau lasted but a moment. Gabriel advanced a few steps, his
eyes gleaming with jealousy and triumph. Before him stood the petrified
lovers, caught red-handed. Through her dazed brain struggled the
conviction that he could never escape; through his ran the miserable
realization that he had ruined her forever. Gabriel, of all men!

"I arrive inopportunely," he said, harshly, the veins standing out on
his neck and temples. "Do I intrude? I was not aware that you expected
two, your highness!" There was no mistaking his meaning. He viciously
sought to convey the impression that he was there by appointment, a
clandestine visitor in her apartments at midnight.

"What do you mean by coming to my apartment at this hour?" she
stammered, trying to rescue dignity from the chaos of emotions. Lorry
was standing slightly to the right and several feet behind her. He
understood the Prince, and quickly sought to interpose with the hope
that he might shield her from the sting.

"She did not expect me, sir," he said, and a menacing gleam came to
his eyes. His pistol was in his hand. Gabriel saw it, but the staring
Princess did not. She could not take her eyes from the face of the
intruder. "Now, may I ask why you are here?"

Gabriel's wit saved him from death. He saw that he could not pursue the
course he had begun, for there was murder in the American's eye. Like a
fox he swerved and, with a servile promise of submission in his glance,
said:

"I thought you were here, my fine fellow, and I came to satisfy myself.
Now, sir, may I ask why you are here?" His fingers twitched and his eyes
were glassy with the malevolence he was subduing.

"I am here as a prisoner," said Lorry, boldly. Gabriel laughed
derisively.

"And how often have you come here in this manner as a prisoner? Midnight
and alone in