Time enough to take this final step when their defense was forced, and that would be soon. In all likelihood, he had not much more than a minute to live, and he devoted that minute to Joan.
"Sweetheart," he murmured tenderly, "you saw the beginning of my career as a King, and it seems that you are fated to see its end. Have you forgotten what Pallas Athene said to Perseus? It is not so long ago, that morning in the Louvre. But why did you run away from Paris? Why have you not written? If you knew how I hoped for a word from you! My heart told me you loved me; but even one's heart likes to be assured that it is not mistaken."
He was looking into her eyes. The fantasy seized her that he was able to read her secret soul, and she swept aside any thought of concealment. "Alec," she said, "tell me truly, are we in danger of death?"
"I am," he replied simply. It was better so, he thought.
"Then I thank God that I am here to die with you."
He dared not hint that she might escape. "We still have a remote chance," he went on. "Let us talk of ourselves, not of death."
"But I don't want to die, Alec," she whispered brokenly. "I want to live, dear. I want to live and be your wife. Oh, Alec, let us ask Heaven for one year of happiness, one short year——" She choked, and the tears so bravely repressed hitherto dimmed her glorious eyes. Her piteous appeal increased the torment of his impotence. His face grew marble white beneath the bronze, and he bent in mute agony over her bowed head.
Felix, crouching behind Beaumanoir, assured himself that the King and his chosen lady were momentarily deaf to all else than the one supreme fact that each loved the other. He sighed, and touched the stalwart Beaumanoir's shoulder, which he was just able to reach with uplifted hand.
"Drop on your knees," he said. "I want to tell you something."