Again she lifted her wondrous face to his, and tears were glistening in her eyes. Yet, in the dim light of the open field he fancied he saw a piteous smile dimple her cheeks.
“Spare me your vows,” she said. “Keep them for her whose love is so strong that it binds you beyond the seas. And now, let us return.”
She looked up at him so wistfully that he yielded to impulse and kissed her. Perchance her heart fluttered with the thought that she had won, after all. But Mowbray was adamant in his faith, and his was the kiss of pity, not of passion.
“I shall never know peace again,” he cried, “until you are well content that I am pledged to another, and even wish her well of a poor bargain.”
“Then you are doomed to a life of misery, for that shall never be,” she retorted.
“Say not so, Princess. Your name alone was chosen with wondrous wisdom. It marks out one who has but to seek a throne to obtain it.”
“Ah, is that your secret thought? Strange, indeed that it should pair with mine!”
She wrenched herself free from his embrace, and ran a little way back through the millet. Then she stopped, and there was the wonted imperious ring in her voice as she cried:—
“A moment ago you undertook to defend me from my enemies. Swear, then, that you will obey my wishes!”