“Count, I command you on your allegiance,—go at once.”
“Madame, I absolutely refuse to leave you.”
“But why?” she asked, with an attempt at anger. “Count, I—I dreamt last night that you loved me. If—if I was right, go for my sake, I entreat you. It is my last request.”
“Madame, I also dreamt that dream, and it is for that reason that I will not go. I had rather die with you than live without you.”
A fresh cloud of stifling smoke rolled into the room, making them both gasp for breath. The Queen tottered, and Cyril caught her in his arms.
“I don’t think it will be very painful,” he said, trying to find some crumb of comfort for her. “The smoke will do the business before the flames reach us. It can’t hurt very much.”
“No; it can’t hurt much now,” she replied dreamily.
The shawl had fallen back from her head; and as her face lay on his breast, her hair brushed his very lips. Almost unconsciously, he pressed a kiss upon it. She looked up quickly, with a searching glance; but as her eyes met his in the lurid light, their expression changed, softened, and a flush crept over her face. She sighed as her head sank back to its former position; but it was a sigh of absolute contentment, and Cyril, emboldened by the look he had caught, stooped and kissed her on the mouth. She did not resist, and the thrill of exultation which ran through him swept away the last barriers between them. He kissed her again passionately, and spoke fast and in broken accents, his tongue unloosed by the approach of the death which was so surely creeping nearer.
“Ernestine—my dearest!” he said again and again, his low voice sounding louder in her ears than the roar of the flames or the torrent, “we can welcome death, for it has given us to each other. Life would have kept us apart; but there is nothing between us now. We stand here as man and woman—not Queen and servant any longer. And yet you are my Queen—and I am your servant—always—but now it cannot separate us. We have left our lives behind us. Tell me that you love me—just the one word.”
The overmastering passion with which he spoke stirred Ernestine, and she shook back her hair and looked at him with shining eyes. “My love!” she said, and hid her face again. “Death will be easier than life would have been,” she murmured.