es, dropped. She caught sight of his face.

It was the Emperor.

A moment ago she had felt that she could look at him with
indifference, and would a thousand times over prefer a glimpse of the
dear old house at Hampton Court, with an easy way to reach it. But
now, everything was changed. There was no longer any danger. He was
there. He was coming to help her. A Power higher than his had arranged
this as their first encounter, and would not have taken the trouble to
bring him to her here, if the meeting were to end in ignominy or
disaster.

He had run across the plateau; now the nailed boots were ringing on
rock. She could gaze down upon his head, he was so close to her. He
was looking up. What a noble face it was! Better than all the
pictures. And the eyes--

Virginia was suddenly and wildly happy. She could have sung for joy, a
song of triumph, and losing her head a little she lost her scant
foothold as well, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the
steeply sloping rock.

If the man had not sprung forward and caught her, she would probably
have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding
down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and
broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an
ace of being on her knees.

After all, it had been a narrow escape; but the man's arms were so
strong, and his eyes so brave, that Virginia scarcely realized the
danger she had passed. It seemed so inevitable now, that he must have
saved her, that there was room in her thoughts for no dreadful
might-have-been. Was it not the One Man sent to her by Destiny, when
if this thing had not been meant, since the hour of her birth, it
might easily have been some mere tourist, sent by Cook?

[Illustration: _She lost her scant foothold, slipped, tried to hold
on, failed, and slid down the rock_]

All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of
green felt adorned with the beard of a chamois, was the face she
had seen in dreams. A dark, austere young face it was, with more of
Mars than Apollo in its lines, yet to her more desirable than all the
ideals of all the sculptors since the world began. He was dressed as a
chamois hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn, almost shabby
clothes to distinguish the wearer from the type he chose to represent.
But as easily might the eagle to whom in her heart she likened him,
try to pass for a barnyard fowl