Just then they heard the voice of some one calling to them, and, looking round, they saw Jack Templemore and Zonella, with several others, coming towards them in another boat. When they were within speaking distance, Jack said that Monella had sent him to tell Leonard he wished to speak to him; Leonard accordingly took up the oars and rowed the barge slowly to shore. There he left Ulama with the party, and proceeded in search of Monella who, he had been told, was awaiting him upon a terrace that overlooked the lake. Here Leonard found him seated with a field-glass in his hand. Monella turned and looked searchingly at the young man, who felt himself colouring under the other's glance. "I love not to seem to spy upon your acts, my son," Monella began gravely, "but when I caught sight of you in yonder boat holding the hand of the princess, the daughter of the king, who is our kind and gracious host, I could not well do otherwise than seek a talk with you. I fear you have not well considered what you do." At this rebuke Leonard coloured up still more, albeit the words were spoken with evident kindness. For that very reason, probably, they sank the deeper. It was the first time anything savouring of reproof to him had fallen from Monella's lips; and, up to that moment, its possibility had seemed remote; and now the young man deeply felt the fact that the other should have thought it necessary. "I think I know what you would say," he answered in a low voice. "I feel I have been wrong--guilty of thoughtlessness, presumption, and seemingly of breach of confidence. I understand what is in your mind. Yet let me say at once that so far little--practically nothing--has been said, and nothing more shall be--unless--you can tell me I dare hope. But oh, my good friend, you who have treated me always as a son, and shown such sympathy and kindness towards me--who have known of my half-formed aspirations, and the ideas that led me on and ended in my coming here, and encouraged me in those ideas--who have learned that in the king's daughter I have found the living embodiment of the central figure of all my dreamings--_you_ surely will not now turn upon me and tell me I must stifle all my feelings, and--give--up--the hopes--that had arisen--in my heart?" And Leonard sank wearily into a seat. Then, for the first time realising his actual position, how next to impossible it was that the king would regard with favour his pretensions, he placed his hands before his face and groaned aloud. Monella rose, and, going to him, laid his hand kindly upon his shoulder.