Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/292

 follow the path of honour, wherever it may lead, and meet unflinching

Arthur, dethroned, ruined, heart-broken, mortally wounded, and unhorsed, will be no less Arthur than when on Badon Hill he stood

and shouted victory with a great voice in the culminating triumph of his glory.

For him too at this supreme moment the master-passion asserts its sway, and even that great soul thrills to its centre with the love that has been wasted for half a life-time on her who is only now awaking to a consciousness of its worth. He cannot leave her for ever without bidding farewell to his guilty queen. So riding through the misty night to the convent where she has taken