to the
murderers--even to the murderers of poor Soame Rivers. She was thinking
of Ericson's going away.

'Yes, I am going,' he said. 'My duty and my destiny--if I may speak in
that grandiose sort of style--call me that way.'

'I know it,' Helena said; 'I would not have it otherwise.'

'And I know _that_,' he replied tenderly, 'because I know you,
Helena--and I know what a mind and what a heart you have. Do you think
it costs me no pang to leave you?' She looked up at him amazed, and then
let her eyes droop. Her courage had all gone. If the women who
constantly kept saying that she was forward with men could only have
seen her now!

'Are you really sorry to leave me?' she asked at last. 'Shall you miss
me when you go?'

'Am I sorry to leave you? Shall I miss you when I go? Do you really not
guess how dear you are to me, how I love your companionship--and
you--you--you!'

'Oh, I did _not_ know it,' she said. 'But I do know----'. She could not
get on.

'You do know--what?' he asked tenderly, and he took one hand of hers in
his, and she did not draw it away. The moment had come. Each knew it.

'I know that I love you,' she said in a passionate whisper. 'I know that
you are my hero and my idol! There!'

He only kissed her hand.

'Then you will wait for me?' he asked.

'Wait for you--wait here--_without_ you?'

'Until I have won my fight, and can claim you.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed in passion of love and grief and fear, 'how could I
live here without you, and know that you were in danger? No, I
couldn't--couldn't--couldn't! That wouldn't be love--not my
love--no--not _my_ love!'

For a moment even the thought of a rescued Gloria was pushed back in the
Dictator's mind.

'Since it is so,' said the Dictator, not without a gasp in his throat as
he said it, 'come with me, Helena.'

'Oh, thank God, and thank _you_!' the girl cried. 'See here--this is
your birthday, and I had no birthday-gift ready to give you. Ah, I have
been thinking so much about you--about _you_, you _yourself_--that I
forgot your birthday. But now I remember; and here is a birthday-gift
for you--the best I can give!' And she seized his hand and kissed it
fervently.

'Helena,' the Dictator said, with an emotion that he tried in vain to
repress, 'let me thank you for your birthday-gift.' And he lifted her
head towards him and kissed her lips.

'I am to go with you?' she asked fervently, gazing up into his eyes with
her own tear-stained, anx