“Roland, will you forego kingship for my sake?”
“Yes; a thousand times yes!”
“You said ‘For the Empress; not for the Empire,’ but if I am no Empress, you will as cheerfully wed me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I say yes!”
He caught her in his arms, and they floated into the heaven of their first kiss, an ecstatic melting together. Suddenly she drew away from him.
“There is some one coming,” she whispered.
“Nothing matters now,” said Roland breathlessly. “There is no one in the world to-day but you and me.”
Hildegunde drew her hands down her cheeks, as if to brush away their tell-tale color and their warmth.
“‘Tis like,” said Roland, “that you marry a poor man.”