"Great sorrow!" Again that wild peal of laughter. "It was a great joy, the greatest joy I have ever known. When they brought me the news, I went out into the garden of our chalet, and, sure that no eyes were upon me, I danced on the green in the sunlight--with the blood pulsing so deliciously through my veins. I was free--I was free! The world seemed so beautiful! the sky and the mountains so exquisite! Life was such a gift! I was free--free!" She stood up straight, all her muscles tense, her limbs quivering. The pallor had gone; her face glowed with an exultation that was almost of triumph. He stood spellbound at her revelation, unable to find a word. "Ah, you don't understand what it is to be free again! Degradation! I tasted it to its depths. Yours was no degradation! You know nothing of it. I was tied to a brute--no, the brutes are decent and lovable. He was lower--he was lower." Her voice broke in a sob, though no tears came. Wyndham was still silent; he would not seek to penetrate her last reserve. "Don't think me too horrible," she pleaded. "You are the only living being to whom I have bared my soul. You were the one to whom my mind flew as my friend--I have waited for this moment. You must not set me down as a monster." "A monster!" he exclaimed. He was thrown off his irksome guard, and the instant was fatal! "Oh, no, no! I shall always hold you for what you are, for what you have always been to me--a rare princess!" "I have always been to you--" she echoed, then broke off, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing out with the full comprehension of his almost unwitting avowal. Then she went pale to the lips again. "You never spoke," she breathed, "and I did not guess." He realised, half in a daze, that his secret had escaped him; yet--with swift change of mood--he was recklessly glad that she understood at last: even as, standing before her, he, too, understood at last--reading her distress, treasuring her implied reproach for its clear significance, though it put him on his defence. "I was not even on the footing of a guest in this house. The very bread that kept me alive was not my own. It is the law of the world." "You were wrong. There is no law." "There is the law of pride," he argued. "We men do not stoop to happiness, we stoop only to degradation.... And then I feared to break the spell," he went on, seeking a lighter strain. "The wonderful princess would disappear, and I should be left rubbing my eyes." "But it was you who disappeared. The princess thought you shunned her, and she was left--to weep--"