Clementina

For she knew his secret, and to her eyes he was now another man. Before,

Wogan was the untiring servant, the unflinching friend; now he was the

man who loved her. The risks he had run, his journeyings, his unswerving

confidence in the result, his laborious days and nights of preparation,

and the swift execution,--love as well as service claimed a share in

these. He was changed for ever to her eyes; she knew his secret. There

was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand. For she must needs think over

all that he had said and done by the new light the secret shed. When did

he first begin to care? Why? She recalled his first visit long ago to

Ohlau, when he rode across the park on his black horse charged with his

momentous errand. She had been standing, she remembered, before the

blazing log-fire in the great stone hall, much as she was standing now.

Great changes had come since then. She was James Stuart's chosen

wife--and this man loved her. He had no hope of any reward; he desired

even that she should not know. She should no doubt have been properly

sorry and compassionate, but she was a girl simple and frank. To be

loved by a man who could so endure and strive and ask no guerdon,--that

lifted her. She thought the more worthily of herself because he loved

her. She was raised thereby. She could not be sorry; her blood pulsed,

her heart sang, the starry eyes shone with a brighter light. He loved

her. She knew his secret. A little clock chimed the hour upon the

mantel-shelf, and lifting her eyes she saw that just twenty-four hours

had passed since she had driven out of Innspruck up the Brenner.

As she got into bed a horse galloped up to the inn and stopped. She

remembered that she had not ridden on his black horse out of the sunrise

across the plain. He loved her, and since he loved her, surely--She fell

asleep puzzled and wondering why. She was waked up some two hours

afterwards by a rapping on the door, and she grew hot and she recognised

Wogan's voice cautiously whispering to her to rise with all speed. For

in her dreams from which she had wakened, she had ridden across the flat

green plain into the round city of dreams.