"My real name is Lael."
The Prince paled from cheek to brow; his lips trembled; the arm encircling her shook; and looking into his eyes, she saw tears dim them. After a long breath, he said, with inexpressible tenderness, and as if speaking to one standing just behind her—"Lael!" Then, the tears full formed, he laid his forehead on her shoulder so his white hair blent freely with her chestnut locks; and sitting passively, but wondering, she heard him sob and sob again and again, like another child. Soon, from pure sympathy, unknowing why, she too began sobbing. Several minutes passed thus; then, raising his face, and observing her responsive sorrow, he felt the need of explanation.
"Forgive me," he said, kissing her, "and do not wonder at me. I am old—very old—older than thy father, and there have been so many things to distress me which other men know nothing of, and never can. I had once"—
He stopped, repeated the long breath, and gazed as at a far object.
"I too had once a little girl."
Pausing, he dropped his eyes to hers.
"How old are you?"
"Next spring I shall be fourteen," she answered.
"And she was just your age, and so like you—so small, and with such hair and eyes and face; and she was named Lael. I wanted to call her Rimah, for she seemed a song to me; but her mother said, as she was a gift from the Lord, she wanted in the fulness of days to give her back to him, and that the wish might become a covenant, she insisted on calling her Lael, which, in Hebrew—thy father's tongue and mine—means To God."
The child, listening with all her soul, was now not in the least afraid of him; without waiting, she made the application.