.

HIS KINGDOM.
Count Hannibal could not have said why he did not speak to her at once.
Warned by an instinct vague and ill-understood, he remained silent, his eyes riveted on her, until she rose from the floor.

A moment later she met his gaze, and he looked to see her start.

Instead, she stood quiet and thoughtful, regarding him with a kind of sad solemnity, as if she saw not him only, but the dead; while first one tremor and then a second shook her frame.
At length "It is over!" she whispered.

"Patience, Monsieur; have no fear, I will be brave.