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SOPHY OF KRAVONIA "I—I thought of nothing, dear Marie," she said; then with a sudden low murmur of delighted laughter she laid her hands in the Prince's again. She had thought of nothing but of that life together and their love.

"She'll share my life, Marie, and, when the time comes, my throne," the Prince said softly: he tried to persuade and soothe her with his gentle tones. Marie Zerkovitch would not have it. Possessed by her old fear, her old foreboding, she flung away the arm she held with an angry gesture. "It's ruin!" she cried. "Ruin, ruin!" Her voice rang out through the old room and seemed to fill all the Castle of Praslok with its dirgeful note.

"No," said he firmly. "Ruin will not come through me, nor through her. It may be that ruin —what you call ruin—will come. It may be that I shall lose my life or my throne." He smiled a little.

"Such changes and chances come as nothing new to a Stefanovitch. I have clever and bold men against me. Let them try! We'll try, too. But ruin will not be by her fault, nor through this. And if it were, don't I owe her my life already? Should I refuse to risk for her the life she has given?" He dropped his voice to homelier, more familiar tones, and ended, with a half -laugh: "Come, little friend, you mustn't try to frighten Sergius Stefanovitch. It's better the House should end than live on in a coward, you know."

The plea was not perfect—there was wisdom as well as courage in question. Yet he would have maintained himself to be right in point of wisdom, too, had Marie pressed him on it. But her force was spent; her violence ended, and with it her expostulations. But not her terror and dismay. She threw 178