"Thank Heaven!" she faltered. "You are true! You've stood the test. I
love you."

"At last, then, I can introduce you to my sister Virginia," said the
Crown Prince of Hungaria, with a great sigh of relief for the ending
of his difficult part.

CHAPTER XX

AFTER THE CURTAIN WENT DOWN

They were alone together. Adalbert and Count von Breitstein had stolen
from the room, and had ceased to exist for Leopold and Virginia.

"I'll tell you now, why I'm here, and everything else," she was
saying; but the Emperor stopped her.

"Ever since I came to myself, I wanted no explanation," he said. "I
wanted only you. That is all I want now. I am the happiest man in the
universe. Why should I ask how I came by my happiness? Virginia!
Virginia! It's a more beautiful name even than Helen."

"But listen," she pleaded. "There are some things--just a few
things--that I long to tell you. Please let me. Last night I wished to
go into a convent. Oh, it was because I loved you so much, I wanted
you to seem perfect, as my hero of romance, just as you were already
perfect as an Emperor. To think that I should have been far away, out
of Rhaetia, by this time, if Miss Portman hadn't been ill. Dear Miss
Portman! Maybe if we'd gone, nothing would ever have come right. Who
can say?

"You know, my brother came to our hotel this afternoon. When his card
arrived, we couldn't tell whether he knew our secret or not; but when
we had let him come up, we had only to see his face of surprise! He
was angry, too, as well as surprised, for he blurted out that there
were all sorts of horrid suspicions against us, and mother explained
everything to him before I could have stopped her, even if I would;
how I had not wanted to accept you unless you could learn to love me
for myself, and then--how I had been disappointed. No, don't speak;
that's all over now. You've more than atoned, a thousand times more.

"Dal explained things, too, then--very different things; about a
plan of the Chancellor's to disgust you with me, and how he--Dal--had
played into the Chancellor's hands, because, you see, he thought he
was acting wisely for his neglected sister's sake, and because he had
really supposed an actress he knows was masquerading as Miss
Mowbray. Very imprudently he'd told her that some day there might
be--something between you and his sister. She knew quite well, too,
that the real Mowbrays were our cousins; so you see, as she and he
have quarreled