“And you will rule?”
“Yes. Provided—. There is one thing.”
“Yes?”
“That you will help me.”
“I!—a girl!”
“Yes. Does it not occur to you I am absolutely alone?”
She started and for an instant her eyes had pity. “Need you ask whether I will help you?” she said.
She stood before him, beautiful, worshipful, and her enthusiasm and the greatness of their theme was like a great gulf fixed between them. To touch her, to clasp her hand, was a thing beyond hope. “Then I will rule indeed,” he said slowly. “I will rule-” He paused. “With you.”
There came a tense silence, and then the beating a clock striking the hour. She made him no answer. Graham rose.
“Even now,” he said, “Ostrog will be waiting.” He hesitated, facing her. “When I have asked him certain questions—. There is much I do not know. It may be, that I will go to see with my own eyes the things of which you have spoken. And when I return—?”