“I did not know,” he said in dejection, and she took a step nearer to him, and her cheeks flamed.

“Is that the truth?” she asked, her voice trembling with anger.  “You did not know?”

And Wogan understood that the real trouble with her at this moment was not so much the King’s delay in Spain as a doubt whether he himself had played with her and spoken her false.  For if he was proved untrue here, why, he might have been untrue throughout, on the stairway at Innspruck, on the road to Ala, in the hut on the bluff of the hills.  He could see how harshly the doubt would buffet her pride, how it would wound her to the soul.

“It is the truth,” he answered; “you will believe it.  I pledge my soul upon it.  Lay your hand in mine.  I will repeat it standing so.  Could I speak false with your hand close in mine?”

He held out his hand; she did not move, nor did her attitude of distrust relent.

“Could you not?” she asked icily.

Wogan was baffled; he was angered.  “Have I ever told you lies?” he asked passionately, and she answered, “Yes,” and steadily looked him in the face.

The monosyllable quenched him like a pail of cold water.  He stood silent, perplexed, trying to remember.

“When?” he asked.

“In the berlin between Brixen and Wellishmile.”

Wogan remembered that he had told her of his city of dreams.  But it was plainly not to that that she referred.  He shrugged his shoulders.

“I cannot remember.”

“You told me of an attack made upon a Scottish town, what time the King was there in the year ’15.  He forced a passage through nine grenadiers with loaded muskets and escaped over the roof-tops, where he played a game of hide-and-seek among the chimneys.  Ah, you remember the story now.  There was a chain, I remember, which even then as you told of it puzzled me.  He threw the chain over the head of one of those nine grenadiers, and crossing his arms jerked it tight about the man’s neck, stifling his cry of warning.  ‘What chain?’ I asked, and you answered,—­oh, sir, with a practised readiness,—­’The chain he wore about his neck.’  Do you remember that?  The chain linked your hand-locks, Mr. Wogan.  It was your own escape of which you told me.  Why did you ascribe your exploits to your King?”

“Your Highness,” he said, “we know the King, we who have served him day in and day out for years.  We can say freely to each other, ’The King’s achievements, they are to come.’  We were in Scotland with him, and we know they will not fail to come.  But with you it’s different.  You did not know him.  You asked what he had done, and I told you.  You asked for more.  You said, ’Amongst his throng of adventurers, each of whom has something to his credit, what has he, the chief adventurer?’”

“Well, sir, why not the truth in answer to the question?”

“Because the truth’s unfair to him.”

“And was the untruth fair to me?”