“Then you will not let his sacrifice be in vain? You will marry him?”
Impetuously she turned, and faced them. There were blinding drops, clear as diamonds, on the long lashes. “Oh Your Highness, Your–Oh, there is something you can tell me that is–that is inexpressibly better?”
“Let me know what it is.”
“It is if–if you can forgive me.–Mon Dieu, why did you 482need to heap this terrible sacrifice on me? Why could you not remember that I tried to drive you from your empire? That I plotted against you? That––”
“Hush, you would have saved me.”
“Oh, only incidentally, and you knew it. Yet you must––”
“Don’t! There’s nothing to forgive.–But wait, we will grant that there really is, but only that I may exact my price of forgiveness.”
“The price? Name it.”
“That you will marry me, here, to-morrow morning, before I die.”
Jacqueline raised her head. “Has Your Highness,” she demanded, smiling shyly behind her tears, “has he forgotten the woman’s, rather my consideration, before such a question?”