"Then the other was not a love letter, after all," she said, with a little laugh that had more of relief in it than amusement, though she did not know it herself.
"No," he answered gravely. "I wish I had read it. I should at least have shut the window before leaving you!"
Careless of any danger to herself, she sat looking up into his anxious face, her clasped hands lying in his and quite covered by them, as he stood beside her. There was not a trace of fear in her own face, nor indeed of any feeling but perfect love and confidence. Under the gaze of her deep grey eyes his expression relaxed for a moment, and grew like hers, so that it would have been hard to say which trusted the other the more.
"What does anything matter, since we are together now?" she asked. "I am with you, can anything happen to me?"
"Not while I am alive," he answered, but the look of anxiety for her returned at once. "You cannot stay here."
"No--you will take me away. I am ready--"
"I do not mean that. You cannot stay in this room, nor in my apartments. The King is coming here in a few minutes. I cannot tell what he may do--he may insist on seeing whether any one is here, listening, for he is very suspicious, and he only comes here because he does not even trust his own apartments. He may wish to open the door--"
"I will lock it on the inside. You can say that it is locked, and that you have not the key. If he calls men to open it, I will escape by the window, and hide in the old sentry-box. He will not stay talking with you till morning!"
She laughed, and he saw that she was right, simply because there was no other place where she could be even as safe as where she was. He slowly nodded as she spoke.
"You see," she cried, with another little laugh of happy satisfaction, "you must keep me here whether you will or not! You are really afraid--frightened like a boy! You! How men would stare if they could see you afraid!"