"If you knew how happy I have been here you would understand how I dread the mere chance of leaving it——"
"I shall return," he answered. "It is not possible nor wishful that I should dethrone the King; but I will get such a handle to English affairs that they will never league with France again; and thou—thou needest not leave The Hague for an hour."
"There is the least of my troubles disposed of," she answered sadly. "For you forget how your poor wife loves you, and how the thoughts of the manifold perils, and your own rash temper that will not regard dangers, will put me into a fright which will come between me and God Himself."
The tears gushed up again, but she checked them, dabbing her eyes with a damp handkerchief, while she exclaimed on the gasp of a trembling laugh—
"If I cry any more I shall be blind for a week!"
The Prince put his hand on her shoulder.
"'Tis a silly to spend tears for me," he said, "who will go into no more dangers than I have ever been used to, and who only taketh the common risk of common men——" He paused a moment, then added abruptly—
"Yet God He knoweth these tears of thine are all I have in the world for my solace, and I was one of Fortune her favourites, child, to have you to my wife."
His hand fell from her white sleeves, and she caught it between hers so that the rings he wore pressed into her palms.
"Only love and pity me a little," she said, "and I can bear anything. For surely I only live to serve you."