She wore an exquisite gown of white, shimmering with the reflections from the moon that scaled the mountain top.  She stood at the balustrade, her hands clasping a bouquet of red roses, her chin lifted, her eyes gazing toward the mountain’s crest, the prettiest picture he had ever seen.  The strange dizziness of love overpowered him.  His hungry eyes glanced upward towards the sky which she was blessing with her gaze, and beheld another picture, gloomy, grim, cheerless.

Against the moonlit screen of the universe clung the black tower of that faraway monastery in the clouds, the home of the monks of Saint Valentine.  Out of the world, above the world, a part of the sky itself, it stood like the spectre of a sentinel whose ghostly guardian. ship appalled and yet soothed.

He could not, would not move.  To have done so meant the desecration of a picture so delicate that a breath upon its surface would have swept it forever from the vision.  How long he revelled in the glory of the picture he knew not, for it was as if he looked from a dream.  At last he saw her look down upon the roses, lift them slowly and drop them over the rail.  They fell to the ground below.  He thought he understood; the gift of a prince despised.

They were not twenty feet apart.  He advanced to her side, his hat in one hand, his stick—­the one that felled the Viennese—­trembling in the other.

“I did not know you were here,” she exclaimed, in half frightened amazement.  “I left my ladies inside.”

He was standing beside her, looking down into the eyes.

“And I am richer because of your ignorance,” he said, softly.  “I have seen a picture that shall never leave my memory—­never!  Its beauty enthralled, enraptured.  Then I saw the drama of the roses.  Ah, your Highness, the crown is not always a mask.”

“The roses were—­were of no consequence,” she faltered.

“I have heard how you stand between two suitors and that wretched treaty.  My heart has ached to tell you how I pity you.”

“It is not pity I need, but courage.  Pity will not aid me in my duty, Mr. Lorry.  It stands plainly before me, this duty, but I have not the courage to take it up and place it about my neck forever.”

“You do not, cannot love this Lorenz?” he asked.

“Love him!” she cried.  “Ach, I forget!  You do not know him.  Yet I shall doubtless be his wife.”  There was an eternity of despair in that low, steady voice.

“You shall not!  I swear you shall not!”

“Oh, he is a prince!  I must accept the offer that means salvation to Graustark.  Why do you make it harder with torture which you think is kindness?  Listen to me.  Next week I am to give my answer.  He will be here, in this castle.  My father brought this calamity upon Graustark; I must lift it from the people.  What has my happiness to do with it?”

Her sudden strength silenced him, crushed him with the real awakening of helplessness.  He stood beside her, looking up at the cold monastery, strangely conscious that she was gazing toward the same dizzy height.