gazing enraptured into
the water, and on the gold fish and the swans and the fountains. He
would be teasing Nature for a sonnet's inspiration.

Driscoll went ahead, since Carlota and Eloin talked earnestly in French,
intent on their plot for the persuasion of the Emperor. But as the
American parted a clump of oleanders and laden rosebushes that hid the
little lake, he stopped, his eyes wide on something just beyond. In the
instant he fell back, and confronted the other two with such a look on
his face that both started in vague alarm. They saw the sickened look of
one who turns from a revolting sight. A wretch stricken suddenly blind
may know at once the fact of a terrible grief, yet he cannot quite at
first gather to himself the fullness of the horror. He is only aware
that, afterward, the meaning will slowly take shape, like a gradually
darkening despair.

Driscoll gazed uncertainly at the Empress, as though she had somehow
arrested his thoughts. Then, as a strong man rushing from danger, he
comprehended that here was a frail woman near the same peril.

"You will not go, ma'am," he ordered in a kind of terror for her.

Eloin had already hastened on to the screen of roses. Being a fellow of
the arras and closets, he scented a royal secret. The Empress lifted her
shoulders and would have followed, but Driscoll did not hesitate. He
took her by the elbow and gently turned her the other way.

"You must not!" he said again, with that same scared manner on him.

She bridled indignantly, but when she saw how white he was, and how
earnest, something there awed her. In a flash she understood. Her lip
curled, baring teeth of the purest pearl, and a sneer quivered on the
highbred nostrils. But suddenly, in piteous tumult, her breast heaved
once, and betrayed the wound. It gave him to know the knighthood which
covets blows in a woman's behalf. But she, with a will that held him in
admiration and reverence for her, spoke to him, and her tone was even,
was unbroken.

"I dare say you are right," she said, and turned to retrace her steps.
But, as if to drink deeper of the bitter cup, she paused, and forced
herself to a last word.

"I suppose I should thank you," she went on, and her eyes, still dry of
tears, were lustrous as they lifted to his, "but a gentleman--and I have
never known one more than you, sir, this minute past--will understand
that I cannot--There, I am going now. And after--after this that you
have just beheld