ou ever known the truth, I wonder?"

"The truth!" he echoed hoarsely. "Don't we all know that? Don't we all
know that he is to give you your rights, that you are coming--"

"Stop!" she ordered him.

He obeyed, and for a moment there was silence--a tense, strained
silence.

"John," she continued at last, "I have no rights to receive from the
Prince of Seyre. He owes me nothing. Listen! Always we have seen life
differently, you and I. To me there is only one great thing, and that is
love; and beyond that nothing counts. I tried to love the prince before
you came, and I thought I did, and I promised him at last what you know,
because I believed that he loved me and that I loved him, and that if so
it was his right. Look down the road, John! On that night I was on my
way to the castle, to give myself to him; but I broke down, and in the
morning the world was all different, and I went back to London. It has
been different ever since, and there has never been any question of
anything between the prince and me, because I knew that it was not
love."

John was shaking in every limb. His eyes were filled with fierce
questioning. Stephen sat there, and there was wonder in his face, too.

"When you came to me that morning," she went on, "you spoke to me in a
strange tongue. I couldn't understand you, you seemed so far away. I
wanted to tell you the whole truth, but I didn't. Perhaps I wasn't
sure--perhaps it seemed to me that it was best for me to forget, if ever
I had cared, for the ways of our lives seemed so far apart. You went
away, and I drifted on; but it wasn't true that I ever promised to marry
the prince. No one had any right to put that paragraph in the
newspaper!"

"But what are you doing here, then?" John asked hoarsely. "Aren't you on
your way to the castle?"

She came a little nearer still; her arms went around his neck.

"You dear stupid!" she cried. "Haven't I told you? I've tried to do
without you, and I can't. I've come for you. Come outside, please! It's
quite light. The moon's coming over the hills. I want to walk up the
orchard. I want to hear just what I've come to hear!"

He passed out of the room in a dream, under the blossom-laden boughs of
the orchard, and up the hillside toward the church. The dream passed,
but Louise remained, flesh and blood. Her lips were warm and her arms
held him almost feverishly.

"In that little church, John, and quickly--so quickly, please!" she
whispered.