Then, while the sneers still hovered around his lips, while I counted all was ended, she flung her arms around him, and drew his head down, until his cheek touched hers.
"Not so, my own," she sobbed, "not so; we must part, but not like this. I cannot live if you should think me so worthless. We must part; you must go one way and I the other, but I love you, dear, I love you."
"Mademoiselle," I cried, sharply, "this is mere childishness, this is the weakest folly;" and she, with her eyes glistening, turned again from him, and answered, wearily:
"Yes, 'tis folly, 'tis madness—good-bye."
"No," he cried, wildly, "you shall not go!"
"She must—she shall," I answered, angrily.
"Are you bereft of reason that you would so disgrace yourself—your State?"
"It is no disgrace to marry the noblest woman this world has seen," he retorted, hotly, and I admired him for the blaze of passion in his eyes.
"You speak like a child," I cried. "She says good-bye because she knows that you must part. Prince Ferdinand of Elvirna cannot wed a nobody."
"Prince Ferdinand!" she gasped, and, stepping back a pace, gazed through her tears into his face.