He stopped short, and grew very pale again, looking at the wall, but seeing something very far away.

“Where?” asked Dolores.  “Take me there!  Oh, take me where you are master—­where there is no king but you, where we can be together all our lives, and no one can come between us!”

He stood motionless, staring at the wall, contemplating in amazement the vastness of the temptation that arose before him.  Dolores could not understand, but she did what a loving women does when the man she loves seems to be in a great distress.  She came and stood beside him, passing one arm through his and pressing it tenderly, without a word.  There are times when a man needs only that to comfort him and give him strength.  But even a woman does not always know them.

Very slowly he turned to her, almost as if he were trying to resist her eyes and could not.  He took his arm from hers and his hands framed her face softly, and pushed the gold hair gently back on her forehead.  But she grew frightened by degrees, for there was a look in his eyes she had never seen there, and that had never been in them before, neither in love nor in battle.  His hands were quite cold, and his face was like a beautiful marble, but there was an evil something in it, as in a fallen angel’s, a defiance of God, an irresistible strength to do harm, a terror such as no man would dare to meet.

“You are worth it,” he said in a tone so different from his natural voice that Dolores started, and would have drawn back from him, but could not, for his hands held her, shaking a little fiercely.

“What?  What is it?” she asked, growing more and more frightened—­half believing that he was going mad.

“You are worth it,” he repeated.  “I tell you, you are worth that, and much more, and the world, and all the world holds for me, and all earth and heaven besides.  You do not know how I love you—­you can never guess—­”

Her eyes grew tender again, and her hands went up and pressed his that still framed her face.

“As I love you—­dear love!” she answered, wondering, but happy.

“No—­not now.  I love you more.  You cannot guess—­you shall see what I will do for your sake, and then you will understand.”

He uttered an incoherent exclamation, and his eyes dazzled her as he seized her in his arms and pressed her to him so that she could have cried out.  And suddenly he kissed her, roughly, almost cruelly, as if he meant to hurt her, and knew that he could.  She struggled in his arms, in an unknown terror of him, and her senses reeled.

Then all at once, he let her go, and turned from her quickly, leaving her half fainting, so that she leaned against the wall and pressed her cheek to the rough hanging.  She felt a storm of tears, that she could not understand, rising in her heart and eyes and throat.  He had crossed the room, getting as far as he could from her, and stood there, turned to the wall, his arms bent against it and his face buried in his sleeve.  He breathed hard, and spoke as if to himself in broken words.