She sat looking into the fire.

Seaman, keenly observant as always, realised the change in her, yet found something of mystery in her new detachment of manner.
"Your Highness," he urged, "I am not here to speak on behalf of the man who at heart is, I know, your lover.

He will plead his own cause when the time comes.

But I am here to plead for patience, I am here to implore you to take no rash step, to do nothing which might imperil in any way his position here.

I stand outside the gates of the world which your sex can make a paradise.