Happy? This was no time to give way to happiness. I realized the supreme danger she was in and felt that we lost time by aimlessness of action. I, too, feeling her soft cheek against my arm, was strangely happy. But fear would not let me enjoy the pleasure her proximity gave me. Of course, being possessed of the only automobile in Bharbazonia, we were safe from pursuit for the moment. But there was Nicholas to be reckoned with. He must be told the truth. When he knew that the Prince was Solonika, how would he act? I remembered his curving fingers around an imaginary throat when he told me of the sacrilege. Would he still be of the same opinion when he knew Solonika had committed that great crime against his church? And then my heart stopped beating, and I sat up with a gasp.
The gates! there at the end of the highway stood Castle Comada with its battlements and its closed, barred doors! What good was our flight at all if we were to be stopped by the guard at the end of our run? The government had wires to all its outposts and by this time, perhaps, the two castles. Novgorod on the north and Comada on the south, would be on the look-out for the automobile.
"Solonika, you must tell me what you propose doing. You must realize the castles will know of our coming and will not let us through. How are we to get out of this cursed country?"
"It is so plebeian to be happy," she murmured, like one in a dream. "I never knew, I never dreamed it would be like this. It is so good."
I began to fear for her reason. This obliviousness to fear, when she knew that death inevitable was hanging over her head, like the sword of Damocles, was not entirely natural. But I did not disturb her again until we drew up in front of the tavern about nine o'clock. We had met no one on the road who disputed our progress.
Nick ordered the meal and I followed Solonika to a comfortable chair by the fire. She clung to my hand with all the appearance of a frightened child and would not let me go. I stayed to comfort her while Nick and Teju Okio examined the car which had brought us safely thus far on our journey.
The French landlord was overjoyed. Business he said was very bad. Everybody was at the coronation. There was not a single soul about the inn but his wife and the servants. I arranged for a room at the head of the stairs for Solonika, and urged her to lie down a while before supper. She consented, and I led her to the foot of the stairs. We were alone for the moment. On the first step she stopped and held out her arms to me.
"Oh, Dale Wharton," she whispered, "it is so beautiful. I wonder that I never knew it before. It came so suddenly, when you looked at me in the Cathedral. There seemed to be a stone wall ahead. I could not go forward and I could not go back. Then, somehow, you came to me and I realized what a lonely life I should lead thereafter. Without you I did not want to live. You made me tell. And now I am free to die."
"Hush, sweetheart, you must not talk of dying. I will save you if I can. There must be a way."
"No hope. No hope. Though I turn to the east, west, north, south, there is no hope. The Greek church—my church—is hedging me about. I have given up. I will fight no more. For my sacrilege I must die. In the sight of God I am accursed. I must die. I must."