She gave a glad exclamation of realization, and her own arms closed impulsively around his neck.
"You are real! You are real!" she whispered, looking into his eyes, her gauntleted hands holding his face between them.
"Cara," he begged, "listen to me. It's my last plea. You said in the letter I have in my pocket—there where your heart is beating—that you could not refuse me if I came again. Dear, this is 'again.' The Isis is a speck out there at sea awaiting a signal. Will you go? I have no throne to offer, but—"
"Don't," she cried, holding a hand over his lips. "For a minute—just for a little golden minute—let us forget thrones." Then as the furrow came back between her brows: "Oh, boy, it's my destiny to be always strong enough to resist happiness when I might have it by being less strong, and always too weak to bear bravely what must be borne—when it can't be helped."
He stood silent.
After a moment she went on. "And I love you. Ah, you know that well enough, but up there beyond your head which I love, I see the green and white and blue flag of Galavia which I hate, and destiny commands me to be disloyal to you for loyalty to it. On the eve of life imprisonment," she went on, clinging to him, "I have stolen away to play truant perhaps for the last time—still craving freedom, longing for you; and now I find freedom, and you, just to lose you again! I can't—I can't—yes—I can—I will!"
Suddenly he held her off at arms' length and looked at her with a strange wide-eyed expression of discovery.
"But," he cried with the vehemence of a sudden thought, "you are up here—safe! Safe, whatever happens down there! Nothing that occurs there can affect you!"
"Safe, of course," she spoke wonderingly. "What danger is there?"
The man turned. "For God's sake—let me think a moment!" He dropped on the pine needles and sat with his hands covering his face and his fingers pressed into his temples. She came over.