It was, in a sense, a triumph, or at least, a notable success, for the Duke, that he, the King, had been crowned; that the day had passed without hostile demonstrations, without a single regrettable incident. What reward could he give, what return could he make, to the old statesman, for his ungrudging, tireless service? The Duke was his servant. In intimate, familiar talk, he never failed to call him "sir." The Duke must be his friend. His friend? A King could have no friends. A man apart, isolated, lonely, and remote, as his father had always been, a King was condemned to live alone. A sudden, unbearable sense of loneliness, a terror of himself, a terror of this new, isolated, remote life, in which he was to be denied even the poor palliative of friendship, swept over the King. He had longed to be alone. He had come up, out here, on to the palace roof, to be alone. He had been eager to escape from the curious faces, from the thousand eyes. But now he longed for human companionship, for human sympathy, for human hands. "Judith!" The name rose to the King's lips, unsought, unbidden. Judith, tall and slender, with her deep, dark, mysterious eyes, and her crown of jet black hair; Judith, with her cheeks flushed with pleasure, her eyes aglow, and her hand stretched out to him in joyous welcome--the King saw, and felt, her bodily presence, as in a vision, and his loneliness, and his terror, his weariness, and his fever, fell from him. He must go to Judith. It would be dangerous. It was always dangerous. It would be more dangerous, tonight, than ever before. But he would go. He must go. All day he had smiled, and bowed, and posed, for the multitude, playing his part in the gorgeous, public pageantry, which the multitude loved, an actor playing his part, an actor, the servant of the public. Surely, now, he might wrest a few brief hours, from the night, for himself? It was a long time, a week or more, since he had seen Judith. A few brief hours with Judith, a few brief hours of rest, of rural peace, and quiet talk; a romp with the Imps, who would be fast asleep now, tucked up in their cots, each clutching some cherished toy, some strange, woolly animal, or some dearly prized, deadly instrument of mimic war, but who would awake, with their prattle, like the birds, at dawn; a few minutes of Uncle Bond's diverting nonsense, about the next instalment of his forthcoming serial, and the dire distresses he had invented for his latest business girl heroine--a few brief hours, so spent, would bring him back to the palace, refreshed and strengthened, ready to shoulder, once again, the heavy burden of his isolation, the heavy burden which seemed now too heavy to be borne. Yes. Late as it was, he would go to Judith. A night visit? It would be after one o'clock in the morning, when he arrived. Would Judith mind? Surely not! Judith and he were outside conventions.