w and then, was happiness
enough--but of late the hours I have spent here have brought me little
but the misery of longing for what must ever be denied!"

She could no longer misunderstand. So far from his devotion having
abated, it was stronger than she had ever imagined, and the discovery
made her sorrier for him than ever. "Girofle!" she cried remorsefully,
"I never knew you felt it like that--I thought you understood, and were
content with--with all that I could give you. Oh, why _can't_ you be?"

"And what have you given me, Daphne? What am I to you? Nothing!
Nothing!"

"You are my friend--the dearest friend I have ever had. Is _that_
nothing, Girofle?"

"Nothing compared with what I once hoped to be! Hoped--while, even then,
I knew how impossible any hope was. And yet--and yet--what adds to my
torment is that I know--yes, Daphne, I _know_--that--if--if by an evil
fate I had not been what I am, I could have made you love me. I am very
sure of _that_!"

She was looking at him as she spoke--and somehow she ceased to think him
plain. And suddenly she knew that he had become necessary to her--so
necessary that the thought of losing him was unendurable.

"And why," she said, "are you so sure that it is impossible now,
Girofle?"

"Daphne," he cried incredulously, "do you mean that you can love
me--even as I am?"

She did not reply in words, but her face as she raised it to his was
answer enough; and then he held her in his arms, into which she nestled
with a little sigh of perfect content. He could not understand how so
marvellous and unlooked for a thing could have happened to him, and
Daphne herself might have been at some loss to account for her sudden
surrender. But she did not try--she only knew that she had been quite
powerless to help it, and did not regret it.

"And you will not go away from Eswareinmal now, Girofle?" she said a
little later, when they were sitting on a stone seat under an ilex, and
the gold and silver stars were beginning to come out in the deep violet
sky.

"Not alone, dearest," he replied. "But it will not be wise to stay here
long. I was recognised this afternoon by that meddling old imbecile of a
Court Chamberlain."

"Girofle!" she exclaimed, clinging to him in terror, "will he give you
up--can they do anything to you? If there's danger, let us escape at
once--for of course I shan't let you go alone!"

"There's no danger," he said. "If he lets out that I am here, it would
be