"You call me generous," he went on, "but I am generous with another's property. Grimland is yours or Gloria's; mine it never was. Fate has somehow set me as umpire in a great quarrel; and being holder of the scales I must perforce be impartial. Supposing I trample conscience under foot and do a nameless deed under the moon: suppose we return to Weidenbruck triumphant as Queen and consort, what then? Bernhardt, who understood the temper of the Grimland _canaille_, who ruled them as a rough huntsman rules a pack of hounds--Bernhardt the apostate, the _absintheur_, the distorted genius whose counsels could alone have kept us in power--is no more. Matti is dead--Matti who, as city prefect, did more with his reforming zeal to make the name of Schattenberg stink in the nostrils of the citizens than any enemy could have done. Weidenbruck is yours for the asking! The nobility were never against you; the people were ours only in their meaner moments. You left the capital as a fugitive; you will return as conquerer, and the people will cry, as I cry now: 'Long live Karl the Twenty-second, of Grimland!'" Still Karl maintained his frozen silence; not a muscle of his face moved. Only, there was a gleam in his eyes that seemed to look beyond the stark pine trunks and the barren fields of snow; that seemed to project his vision over forty leagues of hill and plain to the turbulent city on the Niederkessel, where a shouting throng acclaimed him as their King. For a moment his whole face lit up with a wonderful glow, and then his emotion seemed to master him. He was a strong man, but he had been through much, physically and mentally, and the last sudden vicissitude of his fortunes won a sharp reaction. His heart beat in great thuds, and the stiff vertical trunks of the forest pines bent and swayed before his eyes. He leaned against a big tree and covered his face with his hands. Trafford turned and faced Gloria. He expected reproaches, anger, tears of despair. He had given away her kingdom to her enemy. The strong plant of her ambition he had cut at the very tap-root. He who, by hardening his heart, might have made her a queen, had preferred by an act of mercy to make her a fugitive! He steeled himself against the expected hurricane of bitterness. He looked, and as he looked he rubbed his eyes in amazement. The face of Gloria von Schattenberg was the face he had seen in delirium at the old house at Wallen,--the face of a woman with a loving heart and a soul of flame. The eyes that met his were bright with a splendid joy, overflowing with a great tenderness. "Gloria!" She advanced towards him with outstretched arms, a smile on her lips. He seized her and drew her to him. "Have I done right?" he whispered.