“I have not forgotten,” said he, “your sudden start when first I confessed my love to you, your grave look, your pleading for Marie, your little homily on virtue: ‘I may be the wife, I will never be the mistress of a Czar.’ I loved you all the more for that saying. It was then I told you of Marie’s secret longing, and you agreed that if guilt should be found in her, and I should put her away, you would be my wife. Was it not so? To prove how much I was in earnest did I not commit my promise to writing?” “You did, Sire. It is here,” she replied, withdrawing her hand from his and taking the document from her bosom. “Let me return it to you. Or, better still—” She rose from the ottoman and, placing one end of the scroll to a lighted taper in the chandelier, let the parchment burn till the flame all but touched her fingers. The charred fragment floated from her hand to the floor. “It was a dishonourable compact. It shames me to recall it.” The writer of the document had watched her action with a troubled look. “Pauline,” he said gently, “in what have I offended? What has caused this difference in you? Why are you so cold to-day? Speak, as you spoke at our last meeting, or I—I——” His voice trembling with emotion, he rose to his feet and, taking both her hands within his own, strove to look into her averted face. “Nay, do not turn from me,” said he. “It is a Czar that offers you his love. Among the royal princesses of Europe is there one but would thrill with pleasure to be as you are to me? All that I have is yours—palaces, gold, jewels. You will be above queens. At my coming coronation you shall sit beside me on the throne amid a blaze of glory, admired and worshipped by all. Ten thousand swords will flash from their scabbards, ten thousand of the noblest in the Empire will swear to shed their last drop of blood in your defence. My ministers shall be nothing to me; it is your sweet counsel I shall follow. Your policy shall be my policy. Do I not know that the dearest wish of your heart is to see the exiled Bourbons restored to the throne of France? That wish shall become a reality; at your word armies shall march to overturn this Corsican adventurer.” Pauline caught her breath at this last—of all his arguments the only one that had power to move her. But her hesitation lasted for a moment only. Strengthened by prayer, purified in mind, she had come forth from the oratory a new creature, armed with a power that enabled her to set aside the ambitious hopes that had dazzled her during so many months. “It is useless to tempt me, Sire,” she said firmly, seeking to withdraw her hands. “It must not be.” “Why not?”