"Don't leave me now. I want to say what I came over here to say,
and then you can go back to your throne and your royal reserve,
and I can go back to the land from which you drew me. I came
because I love you. Is not that enough to drag a man to the end
of the world? I came to marry you if I could, for you were Miss
Guggenslocker to me. Then you were within my reach, but not now!
I can only love a princess!" He stopped because she had dropped
to the couch beside him, her serious face turned appealingly to
his, her fingers clasping his hands fiercely.

"I forbid you to continue--I forbid you! Do you hear? I, too,
have thought and dreamed of you, and I have prayed that you might
come. But you must not tell me that you love me-you shall not!"

"I only want to know that you love me," he whispered.

"Do you think I can tell you the truth?" she cried. "I do not
love you!"

Before he had fairly grasped the importance of the contradictory
sentences, she left his side and stood in the window, her breast
heaving and her face flaming.

"Then I am to believe you do," he groaned, after a moment. "I
find a princes and lose a woman!"

"I did not intend that you should have said what you have, or
that I should have told you what I have. I knew you loved me or
you would not have come to me," she said, softly.