answer; then her voice came, interrupted and
half-choked by constant sobs.

"I can't do it, I can't do it. For God's sake, don't make me do it.

"Do what?" I asked.

Her sobs alone answered me, and their answer was enough. I sat there
helpless and still, the nervous tight clutching of her hands pinning my
arms to my side.

"You're the king, you're the king," she moaned.

Yes, I was the king; even then I smiled.

"You don't know," she went on, and now she raised her face streaming
with tears. "You don't know--how can you know what it is? Help me, help
me, Augustin."

The thing had come on me with utter suddenness, the tranquillity of my
quiet room had been rudely rent by the invasion. I was, in an instant,
face to face with a strange dim tragedy, the like of which I had never
known, the stress of which I could never fully know. But all the
tenderness that I had for her, my love for her beauty, and the yearning
for comradeship that she herself had choked rose in me; I bent my head
till my lips rested on her hair, crying, "Don't, darling, don't."

She sprang up, throwing her arm about my neck, and looking round the
room as though there were something that she feared; then she sat on my
knee and nestled close to me. She had ceased to sob now, but it was
worse to me to see her face strained in silent agony and her eyes wept
dry of tears.

"Let me stay here, do let me stay here a little," she said as I passed
my arm round her and her head fell on my shoulder. "Don't send me away
yet, Augustin," she whispered, "I don't want to be alone."

"Stay here, dearest, nobody shall hurt you," said I, as I kissed her. My
heart broke for her trouble, but it was sweet to me to think that she
had fled from it to my arms. After all, the old bond held between us;
the tug of trouble revealed it. She lay a while quite still with closed
eyes; then she opened her eyes and looked up at me.

"Must I?" she asked.

"No," I answered. "If you will not, you shall not."

Her arm coiled closer round my neck and she closed her eyes again,
sighing and moving restlessly. Presently she lay very quiet, her
exhaustion seeming like sleep. How long had she tormented herself before
she came to me?

My brain was busy, but my heart outran it. Now, now if ever, I would
assert myself, my power, my position. She should not call to me in vain.
What I would do, I did not know; but the thing she dreaded should not
be. But although I was in this fever, I