"Aye, and such a woman!" I interrupted. "As God hears me, I would give ten years of my life to hold her again in my arms, to kiss her lips, to hear her say that she loved me. But, pardon me, what were you going to say?"
"Your dream Princess was but a woman—ah, well; this is Tuesday;
Thursday at noon she will wed the Prince. It is written."
"The devil!" I let slip. I was at the start again.
"Sir, you do him injustice."
"Who?—the Prince?" savagely.
"No; the—the devil!" She had fully recovered, and I had no weapon left.
"Gretchen, did you really ever love me?"
There was no answer.
"No; I do not believe you did. If you had loved me, what to you would have been a King, a Prince, a principality? If you broke that promise who would be wronged? Not the King, not the Prince."
"No, I should not have wronged them, but," said the Princess rising, "I should have wronged my people whom I have sworn to protect; I should have wronged my own sense of honor; I should have broken those ties which I have sworn to hold dear and precious as my life; I should have forsaken a sacred duty for something I was not sure of—a man's love!"