’Marko, my friend, you know that I cannot be false; then let me tell you I yesterday met the man who has but to lift his hand and I go to him, and he may lead me whither he will.’

The burning eyes of her Indian Bacchus fixed on her till their brightness moistened and flashed.

Whatever was for her happiness he bowed his head to, he said.  He knew the man.

Her duty was thus performed; she had plighted herself.  For the first few days she was in dread of meeting, seeing, or hearing of Alvan.  She feared the mention of a name that rolled the world so swiftly.  Her parents had postponed their coming, she had no reason for instant alarm; it was his violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence that she feared, as nervous people shrink from cannon:  and neither meeting, seeing, nor hearing of him, she began to yearn, like the child whose curiosity is refreshed by a desire to try again the startling thing which frightened it.  Her yearning grew, the illusion of her courage flooded back; she hoped he would present himself to claim her, marvelled that he did not, reproached him; she could almost have scorned him for listening to the hesitations of the despicable girl so little resembling what she really was—­a poor untried girl, anxious only on behalf of her family to spare them a sudden shock.  Remembering her generous considerations in their interests, she thought he should have known that the creature he called a child would have yielded upon supplication to fly with him.  Her considerateness for him too, it struck her next, was the cause of her seeming cowardly, and the man ought to have perceived it and put it aside.  He should have seen that she could be brave, and was a mate for him.  And if his shallow experience of her wrote her down nerveless, his love should be doing.

Was it love?  Her restoration to the belief in her possessing a decided will whispered of high achievements she could do in proof of love, had she the freedom of a man.  She would not have listened (it was quite true) to a silly supplicating girl; she would not have allowed an interval to yawn after the first wild wooing of her.  Prince Marko loved.  Yes, that was love!  It failed in no sign of the passion.  She set herself to study it in Marko, and was moved by many sentiments, numbering among them pity, thankfulness, and the shiver of a feeling between admiration and pathetic esteem, like that the musician has for a precious instrument giving sweet sound when shattered.  He served her faithfully, in spite of his distaste for some of his lady’s commissions.  She had to get her news of Alvan through Marko.  He brought her particulars of the old trial of Alvan, and Alvan’s oration in defence of himself for a lawless act of devotion to the baroness; nothing less than the successfully scheming to wrest by force from that lady’s enemy a document precious to her lawful interests.  It was one of those cases which have a really high