When she was free she sent a herald to fetch him, for now she desired no
longer to play a part, but to be herself. He came slowly to where she
stood, and bowed before her in silence.

"Tell me, Prince Merlin," she said, "if you agree with these courtiers
that to-night I am become a princess?"

"I do not agree with them," he answered. "Clothes do not make a
princess."

Then they looked at each other. "Will you meet me," she said, "on the
edge of the wild forest in half an hour's time?"

"I am your servant," he replied.

She stole away to her rooms, where the moonlight lay athwart the
tessellated marble floor, and opened the casement and placed the lamp
there, which was to be the signal for her attendants to have her horses
ready on the edge of the wild forest. Then she put on the gown she had
worn as a beggar-girl, and her wooden shoes, and let her hair down over
her shoulders.

The way to the wild forest was haunted with shadows and little fleeing
things; and the night-owls called, but she remembered the look in
Merlin's eyes, and conquered her fears.

And there he was waiting, with the moonlight gleaming on his white satin;
and his face turned to the path up which she came.

She held out her hand to him with the blue velvet glove upon it, and she