autiful and unspoken sympathy. The change was indefinable, but
apparent. Ughtred felt it, and sighed.

"This may be the last talk we shall have together for a long time," he
said, gravely; "perhaps forever. I wonder if I might be permitted--to
say something, which has come very near my heart lately."

"You may say anything you choose," she murmured.

"You know that lately I have been travelling about my country--trying
to get to know my people and to understand them. I will tell you,
Sara, what has made the greatest impression upon me. It is their
beautiful domesticity. I think that it has taught me to understand a
little how much fuller and sweeter life may be when one has a wife to
care for, and to help one. And, Sara, I think that I too have been
often lonely, and I too have needed a wife."

"Yes!"

It was no more than a whisper, but it thrilled the man. He touched
her fingers--warm and soft, they seemed almost to invite his caress.

"Sara, I have been dreaming since then, and I thought that when my
people got to understand me a little more, to trust me and believe
in me, I would go to them and say 'I am going to give you a Queen.
Only I am a man as you are men, and I must choose as you have chosen,
the one woman who has my heart.' And, Sara, there might have been
difficulties, but I think that we should have smoothed them away----"

"If!" she echoed.

"If the woman I love, Sara, cared a little for me."

It was dusk, and Ughtred scarcely knew how it happened, but she was in
his arms and they were very happy. It was dusk then, but the stars
were shining when the cathedral clock reminded him that his
love-making must be brief.

"Dear," she murmured, "if you must go, at least remember that you have
made me very happy."

"And I," he answered, cheerfully, "am afraid no longer of anything. I
have become a raving optimist. I feel that if the war comes we shall
sweep the Turks from the face of the earth."

She held out her hand and drew him to her.

"You will not repent?" she murmured. "You ought to marry a princess."

He kissed her on the lips.

"Every woman in the world," he answered, "is a princess to the man who
loves her. You are my princess. There will never be any other!"

She walked with him towards the house.

"I ought to have been discussing your departure with Mr. Van Decht,
and instead I have been discussing other things with you."

"Discussing what?"

"Your departure!"

She laughed soft