LITMIR.BIZ

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This may mean your death and mine, sir, but you would do it. Will you explain to her how I came to play her false?”

      “She shall know the truth, good friend.”

      “After I have gone twenty paces down the hall, do you rap on the door. She may not admit you at first, but do not give up. If she bid you enter or asks your mission, enter quickly and close the door. It is unlocked. She may swoon, or scream, and you must prevent either if possible. In an hour I shall return and you must go back to the passage.”

      “Never! I have come to save her and her country, and I intend to do so by surrendering myself this very night.”

      “I had hoped to dissuade you. But, sir, you cannot do so tonight. You forget that this visit compromises her.”

      “True. I had forgotten. Well, I’ll go back with you, but tomorrow I am your prisoner, not your friend.”

      “Be careful,” cautioned the captain as he moved away. Lorry feverishly tapped his knuckles on the panel of the door and waited with motionless heart for the response. It came not and he rapped harder, a strange fear darting into his mind.

      “Well?” came from within, the voice he adored.

      Impetuous haste marked his next movement. He dashed open the door, sprang inside and closed it quickly. She was sitting before her escritoire, writing, and looked up, surprised and annoyed.

      “I was not to be disturbed—Oh, God!”

      She staggered to her feet and was in his arms before the breath of her exclamation had died away. Had he not supported her she would have dropped to the floor. Her hands, her face were like ice, her breast was pulseless and there was the wildest terror in her eyes.

      “My darling—my queen!” he cried, passionately. “At last I am with you! Don’t look at me like that! It is really I—I could not stay away—I could not permit this sacrifice of yours. Speak to me Do not stare like that!”

      Her wide blue eyes slowly swept his face, piteous wonder and doubt struggling in their depths.

      “Am I awake?” she murmured, touching his face with her bewildered, questioning hands. “Is it truly you?” A smile illumined her face, but her joy was short-lived. An expression of terror came to her eyes and there was agony in the fingers that clasped his arm. “Why do you come here?” she cried. “It is madness! How and why came you to this room?”

      He laughed like a delighted boy and hastily narrated the events of the past twenty-four hours, ending with the trick that gave him entrance to her room.

      “And all this to see me?” she whispered.

      “To see you and to save you. I hear that Gabriel has been annoying you and that you are to give up half of the kingdom tomorrow. Tell me everything. It is another reason for my coming.”

      Sitting beside him on the divan, she told of Gabriel’s visit and his dismissal, the outlook for the next day, and then sought to convince him of the happiness it afforded her to protect him from an undeserved death. He obtained for Quinnox the royal pardon and lauded him to the skies. So ravishing were the moments, so ecstatic the sensations that possessed them that neither thought of the consequences if he were to be discovered in her room, disguised as one of her guardsmen. He forgot the real import of his reckless visit until she commanded him to stand erect before her that she might see what manner of soldier he was. With a laugh, he leaped to his feet and stood before her—attention! She leaned back among the cushions and surveyed him through the glowing, impassioned eyes which slowly closed as if to shut out temptation.

      “You are a perfect soldier,” she said, her lashes parting ever so slightly.

      “No more perfect than you,” he cried. She remembered, with confusion, her own masquerading, but it was unkind of him to remember it. Her allusion to his uniform turned his thoughts into the channel through which they had been surging so turbulently up to the moment that found him tapping at her door.

      He had not told her of his determination, and the task grew harder as he saw the sparkle glow brighter and brighter in her eye.

      “You are a brave soldier, then,” she substituted. “It required courage to come to Edelweiss with hundreds of men ready to seize you at sight,—a pack of bloodhounds.”

      “I should have been a miserable coward to stay up there while you are so bravely facing disaster alone down here. I came to help you, as I should.”

      “But you can do nothing, dear, and you only make matters worse by coming to me. I have fought so hard to overcome the desire to be near you; I have struggled against myself for days and days, and I had won the battle when you came to pull my walls of strength down about my ears. Look! On my desk is a letter I was writing to you. No; you shall not read it! No one shall ever know what it contains.” She darted to the desk, snatched up the sheets of paper and held them over the waxed taper. He stood in the middle of the room, a feeling of intense desolation settling down upon him. How could he lose this woman?

      “Tomorrow night Quinnox is to take you from the monastery and conduct you to a distant city. It has all been planned. Your friend, Mr. Anguish, is to meet you in three days and you are to hurry to America by way of Athens. This was a letter to you. In it I said many things and was trying to write farewell when you came to this room. Do you wonder that I was overcome with doubt and amazement—yes, and horror? Ach, what peril you are in here! Every minute may bring discovery and that would mean death to you. You are innocent, but nothing could save you. The proof is too strong. Mizrox has found a man who swears he saw you enter Lorenz’s room.”

      “What a damnable lie!” cried Lorry, lightly. “I was not near his room!”

      “But you can see what means they will adopt to convict you. You are doomed if caught, by my men or theirs. I cannot save you again. You know now that I love you. I would not give away half of the land that my forefathers ruled were it not true. Bolaroz would be glad to grant ten years of grace could he but have you in his clutches. And, to see me, you would run the risk of undoing all that I have planned, accomplished and suffered for. Could you not have been content with that last good-by at the monastery? It is cruel to both of us—to me especially—that we must have the parting again.” She had gone to the divan and now dropped limply among the cushions, resting her head on her hand.

      “I was determined to see you,” he said. “They shall not kill me nor are you to sacrifice your father’s domain. Worse than all, I feared that you might yield to Gabriel.”

      “Ach! You insult me when you say that! I yielded to Lorenz because I thought it my duty and because I dared not admit to myself that I loved you. But Gabriel! Ach!” she cried scornfully. “Grenfall Lorry, I shall marry no man. You I love, but you I cannot marry. It is folly to dream of it, even as a possibility. When you go from Graustark tomorrow night you take my heart, my life, my soul with you. I shall never see you again—God help me to say this—I shall never allow you to see me again. I tell you I could not bear it. The weakest and the strongest of God’s creations is woman.” She started suddenly, half rising. “Did any one see you come to my room? Was Quinnox sure?”

      “We passed people, but no one knew me. I will go if you are distressed over my being here.”

      “It is not that—not that. Some spy may have seen you. I have a strange fear that they suspect me and that I am being watched. Where is Captain Quinnox?”

      “He said he would return for me in an hour. The time is almost gone. How it has flown! Yetive, Yetive, I will not give you up!” he cried, sinking to his knees before her.

      “You must—you shall! You must go back to the monastery tonight! Oh how I pray that you may reach it in safety! And, you must leave this wretched country at once. Will you see if Quinnox is outside the door? Be quick! I am mad with the fear that you may be found here—that you may be taken before you can return to St. Valentine’s.”

      He arose and stood looking down at the intense face, all aquiver with the battle between temptation and solicitude.

      “I

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