Dirk turned away, shaken. He whispered, "Gone! Rima ... gone ... no one knows where—"
Lenore said soberly, "She loved you, too, Dirk."
"No. She never loved me. Not as I love you ... not as you love me—"
"It was a different kind of love," said the princess.
"I will find her!" vowed Dirk brokenly.
Lenore moved to his side quietly; the warmth of her beside him like the courage of a voice in the wilderness.
"You and I," she breathed, "together, Dirk."
And suddenly, though there stretched before him a new and greater quest than that recently acquitted, Dirk was consumed with a vast impatience to know again the lips of the girl whose nearness was a heady wine, challenging him to dare any danger. He turned to Lenore.
"Together," he agreed. "But first I must return to Nadron to lay the plans. You ... you will come soon, my Princess?"