He did not finish his sentence, but Graub evidently understood its conclusion--and they walked quickly away together in quite an opposite direction to that in which Leroy had gone. Meanwhile, up in the now closed and darkened house they had left behind them, Lotys stood looking at Sergius Thord, who had thrown himself into a chair and sat with his elbows resting on the table, and his head buried in his hands. “You make no way, poor Sergius!” she said gently. “You work, you write, you speak to the people, but you make no way!” He looked up fiercely. “I do make way!” he said; “How can you doubt it? A word from me, and the massed millions would rise as one man!” “And of what use would that be?” enquired Lotys. “The soldiers would fire on the people, and there would be riot and bloodshed, but no actual redress for wrong. You work vainly, Sergius!” “If I could but kill the King!” he muttered. “Another king would succeed him,” she said. “And after all, if you only knew it, the King may be a miserable man enough--far more miserable, perhaps, than any of us imagine ourselves to be. No, Sergius!--I repeat it, you work vainly! You have made me the soul of an Ideal which you will never realise? Tell me, what is it you yourself would have, out of all your work and striving?” He looked at her with great, earnest, burning eyes. “Power!” he said. “Power to change the mode of government; power to put down the tyranny of priestcraft--power to relieve the oppressed, and reward the deserving--power to make of you, Lotys, a queen among women!” She smiled. “I am a queen among men, Sergius, and that suffices me! How often must I tell you to do nothing for my sake, if it is for my sake only? I am a very simple, plain woman, past my youth, and without beauty--I deserve and demand nothing!” He raised himself, and stretched out his arms towards her with a gesture of entreaty. “You deserve all that a man can give you!” he said passionately. “I love you, Lotys! I have always loved you ever since I found you a little forsaken child, shivering and weeping on the cold marble steps of the Temesvar place in Buda. I love you!--you know I have always loved you!--I have told you so a hundred times,--I love you as few men love women!” She regarded him compassionately, and with a touch of wistful sorrow in her eyes. Her black cloak fell away on either side of her in two shadowy folds, disclosing her white-robed form and full bosom, like a pearl in a dark shell. “Good-night, Sergius!” she said simply, and turned to go. He gave an exclamation of anger and pain. “That is all you say--‘Good-night’!” he muttered. “A man gives you his heart, and you set it aside with a cold word of farewell! And yet--and yet--you hold all my life!”