y, and the
two soldiers are becoming alarmed. Oh, my dear, my dear! misfortune and
I have come to you hand in hand!"

"It seems to me that you and Felix have saved my life," said Alec
quietly. "Now, Beaumanoir, you and I must fortify the position. Joan,
stand with your back to the wall between the windows. Felix, watch the
houses opposite, and don't let the enemy take us in flank without
warning. Thank goodness for an oak sideboard and a heavy table! Are you
ready, Berty? Heave away, then! We shall occupy a box in the front row
when Stampoff arrives with his hussars! By Jove! what a day! Twelve
hours in that scorching sun and Joan waiting here all the time! Well,
wonders will never cease! I wish we had one of those live shells we were
experimenting with this morning. It would come in handy when the first
panel gives way."

CHAPTER VIII

SHOWING HOW THE KING KEPT HIS APPOINTMENT

Joan's eyes could not leave Alec. She followed each movement of his
lithe, strongly knit frame as he and Beaumanoir hauled the heavy pieces
of furniture into position behind the door. She was not fully alive as
yet to the real menace of the gesticulating mob surging in the street
beneath, and her thoughts ran riot in the newly discovered paradise of
being loved and in love.

For Alec had asked no questions, listened to no explanations. When he
entered the room, he found her, half turned from the window, conscious
that he was near, though trying to persuade her throbbing heart that
Felix would not depart from an implied promise by sending him to her
without warning. She strove to utter some words of greeting. Before she
could speak, Alec's arms were around her, and he was kissing her lips,
her forehead, her hair. She saw him as through a mist. Her first
fleeting impression was that he had become older, sterner, more
commanding. Kingship had set its seal on him. A short month of power had
stamped lines on his face that would never vanish. But that sense of
imperiousness was quickly dispelled by the enchantment of her presence.

Somehow, almost without spoken word, he brought the thrilling conviction
that he was hungering for her. The light in his eyes, the overwhelming
ardor of his embrace, the magnetic force that leaped the intervening
space while yet they were separated by half the length of the
room,--these things bewildered, charmed, subdued her wholly, and she
kindled under them ere her brain could summon to aid the feeblest of