“Lotys!” he repeated slowly, and in a faint whisper; “Yes, yes—go on! Go on, comrade! Lotys?”
“Lotys is dead!”
An awful stillness followed the words. Stiff and rigid the King sat, as though stricken by sudden paralysis, giving no sign. Minute after minute slipped away,—and he uttered not a word, nor did he raise his eyes from the fixed study of the carpet at his feet.
“Lotys is dead!” went on Zouche, speaking in a slow monotonous way. “This morning, the first thing—they found her. She had killed herself. The pistol was in her hand. And they are laying her out with flowers,—like a bride, or a queen,—and you can go and see her at rest so,—for the last time,—if you will! This is my message! It is a message from the dead!”
Still the King spoke not a word; nor did he lift his eyes from his brooding observation of the ground.
“To be a great King, as you are,” said Zouche; “And yet to be unable to keep alive a love when you have won it, is a hard thing! She must have killed herself for your sake!”
No answer was vouchsafed to him. He began to feel a strange pity for that solemn, upright figure, sitting there inflexibly silent,—and he approached it a little nearer.
“Comrade!” he said softly; “I have hated you as a King! Yes, I have always hated you!—even when I found you had played the part of ‘Pasquin Leroy,’ and had worked for our Cause, and had helped to make what is now called my ‘fame’! I hated you,—because through it all, and whatever you did for me, or for others, it seemed to me you had never known hunger and cold and want!—never known what it was to have love snatched away from you! I watched the growth of your passion for Lotys—I knew she loved you!—and had you indeed been the poor writer and thinker you assumed to be, all might have been well for you both! But when you declared yourself to be King, what could there be for such a woman but death? She would never have chosen dishonour! She has taken the straight way out of trouble, but—but she has left you alone! And I am sorry for you! I know what it is—to be left alone! You have a palace here, adorned with all the luxuries that wealth can buy, and yet you are alone in it! I too have a palace,—a palace of thought, furnished with ideals and dreams which no wealth can buy; and I am alone in it too! I killed the woman who loved me best; and you have done the same, in your way! It is the usual trick of men,—to kill the women who love them best, and then to be sorry for ever afterwards!”
He drew still nearer—then very slowly, very hesitatingly, dropped on one knee, and ventured to kiss the monarch’s passive hand.
“My comrade! My King! I am sorry for you now!”