Yet a thrill ran through his veins as he moved to give effect to his resolution. He felt it, and set his teeth, frowning, as a man might who resents his own blushes over some innocuous malapropism into which he has been betrayed. She had paused among the trees at a little distance away, a slender spirit-like figure, seeming half diaphanous in the shadowy glow of things, claimed both of fancy and reality, like a leaf-dappled hamadryad. His mandolin slung over his arm, he went straight up to her, and, standing erect, the soldier uppermost, spoke out his thought: “My presence here is unwelcome to your Highness?” Her face looked pale; there was still a wonder in her eyes as she turned to him: “It was quite unforeseen, monsieur.” He bowed. “I accept the rebuke. My coming was due to a misapprehension, for which I am not responsible. But the mistake is soon remedied.” Her eyes seemed to wonder more and more. And then the faintest flush stole to her cheek. “Do you not like my orange grove, monsieur?” she said. “It is beautiful,” he answered. “I seem doomed unwittingly to desecrate your Highness’s chosen retreats.” She looked down a moment; a minutest smile rose to her lips: “I have no claim to it really,” she said; “only I love its sweetness and solitude. Bissy is its inspiring genius--as you seem to have discovered.” He saw the sparkle in the eyes she raised, and stood spellbound by it. “I had wronged the boy--hurt him,” he said very seriously; “and my song was in the nature of an atonement.” “A strange one, surely, for a boy’s hurt.” She was grave all at once. “What had he done to offend you?” “Will you please not to ask me? I am a hasty fool in many things.” “You mean you sometimes give pain without intending it?” He bowed his head. “Monsieur,” she said, very earnestly, “in that case will you throw away that flower from your button-hole?” He seemed to have instinctively known what was coming. He put his hand over the withered posy. “My theme,” he said--“that night--it cannot have hurt you. Madame herself proposed it.” “Whence did you gather your theme?” she asked him. “From the floor of the arbour,” he answered. “What then? It was of his Highness’s martyrdom I made it the text.” She sought his eyes, a wistful pain lined between her own. “Ah!” he said, before the appeal on her lips could be spoken; “do not insist. Let me buy my right to it with a song--a dream--a memory--something I cannot explain elsewise.” He had caught at his instrument; a madness seemed to have risen in his brain, desperate, inspired, overbearing, all in one; he hardly knew what he was saying or doing--only that some passion, insidious, unrealised till this moment, was mastering and overwhelming him. “Listen,” he whispered, while she stood before him white and wondering--“hear what it means to me--what emotions--what old sweet agonies of death and parting.” The music came to him, the words, the throbbing anguish of it, as he spoke: