rey
dawn, when he was starting out upon this adventure, and he had seen a
man muffled in a cloak step from its mouth and suddenly draw back as his
horse's hoofs rang in the silent street, as though to elude recognition.
Wogan wondered for a second who at that time had lived in the house; but
he was admitted through a door in the wall and led into a little room
with French windows opening on a lawn. The garden seen from here was a
wealth of white blossoms and yellow, and amongst them Clementina paced
alone, the richest and the whitest blossom of them all. She was dressed
simply in a white gown of muslin and a little three-cornered hat of
straw; but Wogan knew as he advanced towards her that it was not merely
the hat which threw the dark shadow on her face.

She took a step or two towards him and began at once without any
friendly greeting in a cold, formal voice,--

"You have received a letter this morning from his Majesty?"

"Yes, your Highness."

"Why does the King linger in Spain?"

"The expedition from Cadiz--"

"Which left harbour a week ago. Well, Mr. Wogan," she asked in biting
tones, "how does that expedition now on the high seas detain his Majesty
in Spain?"

Wogan was utterly dumfounded. He stood and gazed at her, a great trouble
in his eyes, and his wits with that expedition all at sea.

"Is your Highness sure?" he babbled.

"Oh, indeed, most sure," she replied with the hardest laugh which he had
ever heard from a woman's lips.

"I did not know," he said in dejection, and she took a step nearer to
him, and her cheeks flamed.

"Is that the truth?" she asked, her voice trembling with anger. "You did
not know?"

And Wogan understood that the real trouble with her at this moment was
not so much the King's delay in Spain as a doubt whether he himself had
played with her and spoken her false. For if he was proved untrue here,
why, he might have been untrue throughout, on the stairway at Innspruck,
on the road to Ala, in the hut on the bluff of the hills. He could see
how harshly the doubt would buffet her pride, how it would wound her to
the soul.

"It is the truth," he answered; "you will believe it. I pledge my soul
upon it. Lay your hand in mine. I will repeat it standing so. Could I
speak false with your hand close in mine?"

He held out his hand; she did not move, nor did her attitude of distrust
relent.

"Could you not?" she asked icily.

Wogan was baffled; he was angered. "Have I ever to