“You here!” she exclaimed in trembling accents; “Oh, why, why have you come! Sir, I beg of you to leave this place!—at once, before there is any chance of your being seen; your Majesty should surely know——!”
“Majesty me no majesties, Lotys!” said the King, lightly; “I have been forbidden this little shrine too long! Why should I not come to see you? Are you not known as an angel of comfort to the sorrowful and the lonely?—and will you not impart such consolation to me, as I may, in my many griefs deserve? Nay, Lotys, Lotys! No tears!—no tears, dearest of women! To see you weep is the only thing that could possibly unman me, and make even ‘Pasquin Leroy’ lose his nerve!”
He approached her, and sought to take her hand, but she turned away from him, and he saw her bosom heave with a passion of repressed weeping.
“Lotys!” he then said, with exceeding gentleness; “What is this? Why are you unhappy? I have written to you every day since that night when your lips clung to mine for one glad moment,—I have poured out my soul to you with more or less eloquence, and surely with passion!—every day I have prayed you to receive me, and yet you have vouchsafed no reply to one who is by your own confession ‘the only man you love’! Ah, Lotys!—you will not now deny that sweet betrayal of your heart! Do you know that was the happiest day of my life?—the day on which I was threatened by Death, and saved by Love!”
His mellow voice thrilled with its underlying tenderness;—he caught her hand and kissed it; but she was silent.
With all the yearning passion which had been pent up in him for many months, he studied the pure outlines of her brow and throat—the falling sunlight glow of her hair—the deep azure glory of the pitying eyes, half veiled beneath their golden lashes, and just now sparkling with tears.
“All my life,” he said softly, still holding her hand; “I have longed for love! All my life I have lacked it! Can you imagine, then, what it was to me, Lotys, when I heard you say you loved my Resemblance,—the poor Pasquin Leroy!—and even so I knew you loved me? When you praised me as Pasquin, and cursed me as King, how my heart burned with desire to clasp you in my arms, and tell you all the truth of my disguise! But to hear you speak as you did of me, so unconsciously, so tenderly, so bravely, was the sweetest gladness I have ever known! I felt myself a king at last, in very deed and truth!—and it was for the love of you, and because of your love for me, that I determined to do all I could for my son Humphry, and the woman of his choice! For, finding myself loved, I swore that he should not be deprived of love. I have done what I could to ensure his happiness; but after all, it is your doing, and the result of your influence! You are the sole centre of my good deeds, Lotys!—you have been my star of destiny from the very first day I saw you!—from the moment when I signed my bond with you in your own pure blood, I loved you! And I know that you loved me!”
She turned her eyes slowly upon him,—what eyes!—tearless now, and glittering with the burning fever of the sad and suffering soul behind them.
“You forget!” she said in hushed, trembling accents; “You are the King!”
He lifted her hand to his lips again, and pressed its cool small palm against his brows.