alive again, to have watched your face, to have seen your eyes wake and
the colour come back to your cheeks and the warmth to your dear hands! I
would have given anything for that, and you would rather that I should
have been there, would you not?" She laughed low and kissed away the
answer from his lips. "If I had stayed beside you, it would have been
sooner, love. You would have felt me there even in your dream of death,
and you would have put out your hand to come back to me. Say that you
would! You could not have let me lie there many minutes longer breaking
my heart over you and wanting to die, too, so that we might be buried
together. Surely my kisses would have brought you back!"

"I dreamed they did, as mine would you."

"Sit down beside me," she said presently. "It will be very hard to
tell--and it cannot be very long before they come. Oh, they may find me
here! It cannot matter now, for I told them all that I had been long in
your room to-night."

"Told them all? Told whom? The King? What did you say?" His face was
grave again.

"The King, the court, the whole world. But it is harder to tell you."
She blushed and looked away. "It was the King that wounded you--I heard
you fall."

"Scratched me. I was only stunned for a while."

"He drew his sword, for I heard it. You know the sound a sword makes
when it is drawn from a leathern sheath? Of course--you are a soldier! I
have often watched my father draw his, and I know the soft, long pull.