"Lancaster," muttered the prisoner, with a slight lift of one eyebrow as he turned back towards his chair. "Would you like the window shut?" "Thank you, sir," said Brand, and he fell to thinking. Midnight was striking when he was suddenly aroused by the Queen's presence. The flutter of her draperies, the scent of roses, the sight of her swift grace caught at his senses. The piercing sweetness of her seized at his heart, arrested his breath--and then the touch of her hand upon his shoulder kept him from rising. "Is it true?" she cried to him under her breath. "Is it true? Lord Sydney tells me that if you had stayed in your yacht, gathered your ships, fought the Fleet, hanged the Lord Protector----" "And been a traitor, eh?" he continued, smiling. "You could have conquered the world?" "Yes, I suppose so." He rattled the handcuffs which bound his wrists, and laughed. "Of course I could--oh, any time these ten years past until I became the Queen's prisoner. Conquered the world? What was the good of that?" "And you a prisoner!" Hurriedly she unlocked the handcuffs and released him, then as he rose and stretched his cramped arms-- "You are my world," he laughed. "A woman's love is all the world to a man. Do you want the earth? I'll conquer that and lay it at your feet, if you'll only let me feel the touch of your hand again. And now you're angry! You were just as angry the first time we met, and the second time, and the third--you looked most glorious of all that third time! Warn Margaret of danger and she gets furious, the greater the peril the more royal her rage--the fighting blood all roused before I can speak of peril. What man ever had the courage of the Queen?" "Oh!" she laughed, trying to rub away the sudden flush with her white fingers. "Everything's so different now. Tell me." "The same rose, the same thorns--I daren't!" "Oh, please tell me." "There's treason inside the Palace." "Oh, surely not!" "The Lord Protector has bribed the Captain of the Guard." "Gloucester? Impossible!" "He has been offered the throne." "Oh, think of what you are saying! My own dear cousin, my friend." "He released Prince Ali, sent him to trap me into some avowal of treason. He was actually listening outside the door. He tried to hand me over to Ulster." "And that's why I found the main guard here in this room. And Prince Ali's escape!" Margaret sank into a chair, her white lips drawn with pain. "Guilty," she murmured. "Guilty! Oh, thank God that you are not condemned to this throne. The lessons are so hard to learn--so hard! The Queen must never believe in anybody, she must never even have a friend, she must be all alone in the world. Yet,"--she looked with troubled eyes at his face--"I must believe in some one, or go mad. I cannot bear this solitude, this lonely state, this majesty of pain. I'm only a poor girl robbed of all I love." His hand stole out and rested tenderly on hers. "Poor child," he whispered.