It was thus that Beryl returned to her sovereign's kingdom, on the same day and at the same hour she had left it, though the world was older by forty years. She walked through the streets, a bent, grey-haired woman. Everywhere smiling youth met her gaze. Little children had remained little. They gathered round her, pulling at her dress, and gazing wonderingly into her lined and worn face. "Where art thou going, good dame?" a girl inquired. "To the palace. I wish to see the King." "In good sooth, they will never admit thee into the palace; and did his majesty know that thou wert in the village he would have thee conducted thence." "Ah, maiden! I know of his folly, which will be punished yet, rest assured. I was once a girl like thee, had hair like thine, and smooth white skin." "That must have been a long time ago." "It seems but as yesterday," said Beryl. She dragged her tired limbs to the palace gates, and stood there, bent and tottering. The guard who kept the door refused her admittance, saying that his master would not allow the aged within the precincts of the village; but the King happened to overhear the argument, and at once gave orders to have the woman brought before him. Although she appeared quite unknown to him, he fell upon her neck and embraced her, so wearied was he of the perpetual youth around him. But when she told them who she was, and her story, they greatly marvelled. "Why didst thou leave the Palace of Time, dear Beryl?" asked Rowena. "Sweet Princess, I learned to love the Spirit, forgetting how great, how godlike he was. And little understanding the difference between us, I grew unhappy because he never embraced me. What would you? I was but a woman, still chained to earth, though the companion of an Immortal in the courts of Eternity. I grew to believe that he did not love me; and he, seeing sorrow in my face, thought that I longed to go back to the world. I gave him my love, which was all I had of spiritual to give, and he was happy; but I lived within his home ill-content. One night, when he returned from his yearly circle, I threw my arms around him and kissed him. All the palace shook, and he looked at me with strange, wistful eyes. I felt tired and weak; and I remember nothing more until I awoke, as from a long dream, and found that I was lying on the banks of the stream yonder. I arose and washed in the river, and realised that I was bent, and grey. Then I knew that the fault had been mine; his unwilling lips had given me age, and taken my youth for ever." [Illustration] They led her within the palace, and she was clothed and fed. Rowena looked at her, and marvelled. In the worn, faded face she tried to trace some of the beauty that had been Beryl's; but all in vain. Once they were of the same years, but now Beryl was old and the Princess was in the springtime of life.