not guess?" said Clementina, incredulously. "It is so evident.
Yet I would not have you guess. It is my secret, my discovery. I'll tell
you." She heard a man behind the curtain spring lightly from the window
to the floor. She raised her voice that he might know she had divined
him. "Your sentinel is the one man who has the right to rescue me. Your
sentinel's the King."

At that moment Wogan pushed aside the curtain.

"No, your Highness," said he, "but the King's servant."

The Princess-mother dropped into a chair and looked at her visitor with
despair. It was not the sentinel, to be sure, but, on the other hand, it
was Mr. Wogan, whom she knew for a very insistent man with a great
liking for his own way. She drew little comfort from Mr. Wogan's coming.

It seemed, too, that he was not very welcome to Clementina; for she drew
back a step and in a voice which dropped and had a tremble of
disappointment, "Mr. Wogan," she said, "the King is well served;" and
she stood there without so much as offering him her hand. Wogan had not
counted on so cold a greeting, but he understood the reason, and was not
sure but what he approved of it. After all, she had encountered perils
on the King's account; she had some sort of a justification to believe
the King would do the like for her. It had not occurred to him or
indeed to anyone before; but now that he saw the chosen woman so plainly
wounded, he felt a trifle hot against his King for having disappointed
her. He set his wits to work to dispel the disappointment.

"Your Highness, the truth is there are great matters brewing in Spain.
His Majesty was needed there most urgently. He had to decide between
Innspruck and Cadiz, and it seemed that he would honour your great
confidence in him and at the same time serve you best--"

Clementina would not allow him to complete the sentence. Her cheek
flushed, and she said quickly,--

"You are right, Mr. Wogan. The King is right. Mine was a girl's thought.
I am ashamed of it;" and she frankly gave him her hand. Wogan was fairly
well pleased with his apology for his King. It was not quite the truth,
no doubt, but it had spared Clementina a trifle of humiliation, and had
re-established the King in her thoughts. He bent over her hand and would
have kissed it, but she stopped him.

"No," said she, "an honest handclasp, if you please; for no woman can
have ever lived who had a truer friend," and Wogan, looking into her
frank eyes, was not, af