Page:The Royal Marriage.pdf/11

10 she would have been happy under any circumstances, had she but been beloved. Care she would have soothed, sorrow she could have shared without a murmur, let her but have been loved in return. It is strange what a fanciful thing love with out hope is, how it will create an unreal existence, only, alas! to return more bitterly to the actual. Sophie fancied a little lonely island far off in the southern seas, herself and one other its sole habitants. A slight noise aroused her from her reverie, she started, and saw Count Koningsmarke kneeling at her side. For a moment the intense happiness of his presence predominated, she left one hand in his, and covering her eyes with the other, wept passionately. Her dream seemed at once realised; she asked not how, she only felt that he was there, and that she was unutterably happy.

"Sophie! my beautiful, my beloved!" murmured the Count; but his voice broke the spell, she gasped as if to drink in its low peculiar music, but, sweet as it was, it roused her to a sense of their actual situation.

"Count Koningsmarke," said she rising, but her lip trembled while she spoke, "you are a stranger in the palace, and may not be aware of its customs. I cannot permit your present intrusion. I command you to withdraw."

His natural daring, heightened by a love that took its tone from his ﬁerce and impetuous character, the Count still kept his kneeling attitude.

"Call in your guards," said he, "my head is the forfeit of my presumption. I ask nothing but to look upon you, and life is a light price for that look. Let it be my last."

The determined temper masters the more timid, and Sophie stood irresolute. Koningsmarke saw his advantage, he sprang from his knee, and approached.

"You tell me," exclaimed he, "that I do not know the customs of your court; do you think I do not know the danger;—