The fugitive began to realize how determined was the effort to capture him and how small the chance of acquittal if he were taken.  To his fevered imagination the enmity of the whole world was shaping itself against him.  The air was charged with hatred, the ground with vengeance, the trees and rocks with denouncing shadows, while from the darkness behind merciless hands seemed to be stretching forth to clutch him.  One simple, loyal love stood alone antagonistic to the universal desire to crush and kill.  A fragile woman was shielding him sturdily, unwaveringly against all these mighty forces.  His heart thrilled with devotion; his arm tingled with the joy of clasping her once more to his breast; his wistful eyes hung upon the flickering light far off in the west.  Quinnox had pointed it out to him, saying that it burned in the bedchamber of the Princes Yetive.  Since the memorable night that took him to the cell in St. Valentine’s, this light had burned from dusk to daylight.  Lovingly, faithfully it had shone for him through all those dreary nights, a lonely signal from one heart to another.

At last, stiff and sore, they stole into the narrow streets of Edelweiss.  Lorry glanced back and shivered, although the air was warm and balmy.  He had truly been out of the world.  Not until this instant did he fully appreciate the dread that possesses a man who is being hunted down by tireless foes; never did man’s heart go out in gratitude and trustfulness as did his toward the strong defender whose sinewy arm he clasped as if in terror.

“You understand what this means to me,” said Quinnox gravely, as they paused to rest.  “She will call me your murderer and curse me for my miserable treason.  I am the first to dishonor the name of Quirinox,”

XXII

GRENFALL LORRY’S FOE

The Princess Yetive had not flinched a hair’s breadth from the resolution formed on that stormy night when she sacrificed pride and duty on the altar of love and justice.  Prince Bolaroz’s ultimatum overwhelmed her, but she arose from the wreckage that was strewn about her conscience and remained loyal, steadfast and true to the man in the monastery.  To save his life was all she could hope to accomplish, and that she was bound to do at any cost.  She could be nothing to him—­not even friend.  So long as he lived he would be considered the murderer of Lorenz, and until the end a price would hang over his head.  She, Princess of Graustark, had offered a reward for him.  For that reason he was always to be a fugitive, and she least of all could hope to see him.  There had been a brief, happy dream, but it was swept away by the unrelenting rush of reality.  The mere fact that she, and she alone, was responsible for his flight placed between them an unsurmountable barrier.

Clinging tenaciously to her purpose, she was still cognizant of the debt she owed the trusting, loving people of Graustark.  One word from her could avert the calamity that was to fall with the dawn of the fatal twentieth.  All Graustark blindly trusted and adored her; to undeceive them would be to administer a shock from which they could never recover.