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He seemed to be aware of some one who from a considerable distance was inquiring her reasons for this statement.

“Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German states, when a prince of the reigning house marries outside of the mediatized nobility he thereby forfeits his right of succession. It has been done any number of times. Why, don’t you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen? Conceding you ever do such a thing, your cousin Augustus would become at once the legal heir. So you must marry. It is the only way, I think, to save you from regal incarceration and at the same time to reassure the Prince of Lueminster–that creature’s father–that you have not, and never can have, any claim which would hold good in law. Then Duke Augustus could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning—- And, by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if that is what you call beauty—-” Miss Claridge did not speak this last at least with any air of pointing out the self-evident.

And, “I believe,” he replied, “that all this is actually happening. I might have known fate meant to glut her taste for irony.”

“But don’t you see? You have only to marry anybody outside of the higher nobility–and just as a makeshift—-” She had drawn closer in the urgency of her desire to help him. An infinite despair and mirth as well was kindled by her nearness. And the man was insane and dimly knew as much.

And so, “I see,” he answered. “But, as it happens, I cannot marry any woman, because I love a particular woman. At least, I suppose she isn’t anything but just a woman. That statement,” he announced, “is a formal tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the vulgar call the probabilities. The rest of me has no patience whatever with such idiotic blasphemy.”

She said, “I think I understand.” And this surprised him, coming as it did from her whom he had always supposed to be the fiancee of Lord Brudenel’s title and bank-account.

“And, well!”–he waved his hands–“either as tutor or as grand-duke, this woman is unattainable, because she has been far too carefully reared”–and here he frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom, as you know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile–“either to marry a pauper or to be contented with a left-handed alliance. And I love her. And so”–he shrugged–“there is positively nothing left to do save sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings.”

She said, “Oh, and you mean it! You are speaking the plain truth!” A change had come into her lovely face which would have made him think it even lovelier had not that contingency been beyond conception.

And Mildred Claridge said, “It is not fair for dreamers such as you to let a woman know just how he loves her. That is not wooing. It is bullying.”

His lips were making a variety of irrational noises. And he was near to her. Also he realized that he had never known how close akin were fear and joy, so close the two could mingle thus, and be quite undistinguishable. And then repentance smote him.

“I am contemptible!” he groaned. “I had no right to trouble you with my insanities. Indeed I had not ever meant to let you guess how mad I was. But always I have evaded my responsibilities. So I remain Prince Fribble to the last.”

“Oh, but I knew, I have always known.” She held her eyes away from him. “And I wrote to Lord Brudenel only yesterday releasing him from his engagement.”

And now without uncertainty or haste Paul Vanderhoffen touched her cheek and raised her face, so that he saw it plainly in the rising twilight, and all its wealth of tenderness newborn. And what he saw there frightened him.