“Perhaps, after all, it is well that I was,--unconsciously and against my own volition,--brought here,” she said; “Perhaps it is God’s will that I should speak with you! For, as a rule none of your unknown subjects can, or may speak with you!--you are so much hemmed in and ringed round with slaves and parasites! In so far as this goes, you are to be pitied; though it rests with you to shake yourself free from the toils of vulgar adulation. Your flatterers tell you nothing. They are careful to keep you shut out of your own kingdom--to hide from you things that are true,--things that you ought to know; they fool you with false assurances of national tranquillity and content,--they persuade you to play, like an over-grown child, with the toys of luxury,--they lead you, a mere puppet, round and round in the clockwork routine of a foolish and licentious society,--when you might be a Man!--up and doing man’s work that should help you to regenerate and revivify the whole country! I speak boldly--yes!--because I do not fear you!--because I have no favours to gain from you,--because to me,--Lotys,--you,--the King--are nothing!” Her voice, perfectly tranquil, even, and coldly sweet, had not a single vibration of uncertainty or hesitation in it--and her words seemed to cut through the stillness of the room with clean incisiveness like the sweep of a sword-blade. Outside, the sea murmured and the leaves rustled,--the sun had sunk, leaving behind it a bright, pearly twilight sky, flecked with pink clouds like scattered rose-petals. He looked straight at her,--his clear dark grey eyes were filled with the glowing fire of strongly suppressed feeling. Some hasty ejaculation sprang to his lips, but he checked it, and pacing once or twice up and down, suddenly wheeled round, and again confronted her. “If, as a king, I fall so far short of kingliness, and am nothing to you,”--he said deliberately; “Why did you shield me from the assassin’s dagger a while ago? Why not have let me perish?” She shook back her gold hair, and regarded him almost defiantly. “I did not save you because you are the King!” she replied--“Be assured of that!” He was vaguely astonished. “Merely a humane sentiment then?” he said--“Just as you would have saved a dog from drowning!” A little smile crept reluctantly round the corners of her mouth. “There was another reason,” she began in a low tone,--then paused--“But--only a woman’s reason!” Something in her changing colour,--some delicate indefinable touch of tenderness and pathos, which softened her features and made them almost ethereal, sent a curious thrill through his blood. “A woman’s reason!” he echoed; “May I not hear it?” Again she hesitated,--then, as if despising herself for her own irresolution she spoke out bravely.