win back to womanhood? You yourself do not look so far gone but what
some deed of abnegation, some strong love if you could but conceive
it would set you right again. Surely you of the primrose robes can
sometimes love?"

Whereat unwittingly I troubled the waters in the placid soul of that
outcast Martian! I cannot exactly describe how it was, but she bent her
head silently for a moment or two, and then, with a sigh, lifting her
eyes suddenly to mine, said quietly, "Yes, sometimes; sometimes--but
very seldom," while for an instant across her face there flashed the
summer lightning of a new hope, a single transient glance of wistful,
timid entreaty; of wonder and delight that dared not even yet acknowledge
itself.

Then it was my turn to sit silent, and the pause was so awkward that in
a minute, to break it, I exclaimed--

"Let's drop personalities, old chap--I mean my dear Miss An. Tell me
something about your people, and let us begin properly at the top:
have you got a king, for instance?"

To this the girl, pulling herself out of the pleasant slough of her
listlessness, and falling into my vein, answered--

"Both yes and no, sir traveller from afar--no chiefly, and yet perhaps
yes. If it were no then it were so, and if yes then Hath were our king."

"A mild king I should judge by your uncertainty. In the place where
I came from kings press their individualities somewhat more clearly on
their subjects' minds. Is Hath here in the city? Does he come to your