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SOPHY OF KRAVONIA with Sophy Grouch, and Julia Robins, and Morpingham! But until you came it didn't seem strange. Everything that has happened since I came to this country seemed to lead up to it to bring it about naturally and irresistibly. I forgot till just now how funny it must sound to you—and how—how bad, I suppose. Well, you must accustom yourself to Kravonia. It's not Essex, you know."

"If the King lives?" he asked.

"I shall be with Monseigneur if he lives," she answered.

Yes, it was very strange; yet already, even now— when he had known her again for half an hour, had seen her and talked to her—gradually and insidiously it began to seem less strange, less fantastic, more natural. Dunstanbury had to give himself a mental shake to get back to Essex and to Sophy Grouch. Volseni set old and gray amid the hills, the King whose breath struggled with his blood for life, the beautiful woman who would be with the King if and so long as he lived—these were the present realities he saw in vivid immediate vision; they made the shadows of the past seem not indeed dim—they kept all their distinctness of outline in memory but in their turn fantastic, and in no relation to the actual. Was that the air of Kravonia working on him? Or was it a woman's voice, the pallid pride of a woman's face?

"In Slavna they call me a witch," she said, "and tell terrible tales about this little mark—my Red Star. But here in Volseni they like me—yes, and I can win over Slavna, too, if I get the opportunity. No, I sha'n't be a weakness to Monseigneur if he lives."

"You'll be—?" 272