“Because I am here?” he asked, bending nearer.
“Because God can bless with the same hand that punishes,” she answered, enigmatically, lifting her lashes again and looking into his eyes with a love at last unmasked. “He gives me a man to love and denies me happiness. He makes of me a woman, but He does not unmake me a princess. Through you, He thwarts a villain; through you, He crushes the innocent. More than ever, I thank you for coming into my life. You and you alone, guided by the God who loves and despises me, saved me from Gabriel.”
“I only ask—” he began, eagerly, but she interrupted.
“You should not ask anything, for I have said I cannot pay. I owe to you all I have, but cannot pay the debt.”
“I shall not again forget,” he murmured.
“To-morrow, if you like, I will take you over the castle and let you see the squalor in which I exist,—my throne room, my chapel, my banquet hall, my ball room, my conservatory, my sepulchre. You may say it is wealth, but I shall call it poverty,” she said, after they had watched the black monastery cut a square corner from the moon's circle.
“To-morrow, if you will be so kind.”
“Perhaps I may be poorer after I have saved Graustark,” she said.
“I would to God I could save you from that!” he said.
“I would to God you could,” she said. Her manner changed suddenly. She laughed gaily, turning a light face to his. “I hear your friend's laugh out there in the darkness. It is delightfully infectious.”