r to this creature, worthy as she was of the highest
in the land, and made doubly bewitching by her proud willfulness. That
he should see her for the last time seemed to him as impossible as that
he should never again see daylight; and yet her whole aspect announced
that her threat was serious.

His aggrieved pride and offended sense of absolute power struggled with
his love, repentance, and fear of losing her healing presence; but the
struggle was brief, especially as a mass of business to be attended to
lay before him like a steep hill to climb, and haste was imperative.

He went up to her, shaking his head, and said in the superior tone of a
sage rebuking thoughtlessness:

"Like all the rest of them--I repeat it. My demands had no object in
view but to make you happy and derive comfort from you. How hot must the
blood be which boils and foams at the contact of a spark! Only too like
my own; and, since I understand you, I find it easy to forgive you.
Indeed, I must finally express myself grateful; for I was in danger of
neglecting my duties as a sovereign for the sake of pleasing my heart.
Go, then, and rest, while I devote myself to business."

At this, Melissa forced herself to smile, and said, still somewhat
tearfully: "How grateful I am! And you will not again require me to
remain, will you, when I assure you that it is not fitting?"

"Unluckily, I am not in the habit of yielding to a girl's whims."

"I have no whims," she eagerly declared. "But you will keep your word
now, and allow me to withdraw? I implore you to let me go!"

With a deep sigh and an amount of self-control of which he would
yesterday have thought himself incapable, he let go her hand, and she
with a shudder thought that she had found the answer to the question he
had asked her. His eyes, not his words, had betrayed it; for a woman can
see in a suitor's look what color his wishes take, while a woman's eyes
only tell her lover whether or no she reciprocates his feelings.

"I am going," she said, but he remarked the deadly paleness which
overspread her features, and her colorless cheeks encouraged him in the
belief that, after a sleepless night and the agitations of the last few
hours, it was only physical exhaustion which made Melissa so suddenly
anxious to escape from him. So, saying kindly:

"'Till to-morrow, then," he dismissed her.

But when she had almost left the room, he added: "One thing more!
To-morrow we will try our zitherns t