She could once more enjoy, with a rapture painfully sweet, his proud beauty, and let her looks rest on him with love and adoration.

But at length he crossed the threshold of the boudoir; and now there was an end of her happiness, of her sweet dream, and of her hopes and her rapture.
She was nothing more than the queen, the wife of a dying king; no longer Earl Seymour's beloved, no longer his future and his happiness.
She had courage to greet him with a smile; and her voice did not tremble when she bade him shut the door leading into the hall, and drop the hanging.

He did so, gazing at her with looks of surprise.

He did not comprehend that she dared give him an interview; for the king was still alive, and even with his tongue faltering in death he might destroy them both.
Why did she not wait till the morrow?
On the morrow the king might be already dead; and then they could see each other without constraint and without danger.

Then was she his, and naught could longer stand in the way between them and happiness.