Then she asked gently:
"Now that you have seen, will you not leave your hermitage? Surely it is
wrong to shut one's heart against the world in which one lives. There is
so much work to be done, so much to learn, and you have been granted power
and wealth, Your Highness. The call upon your help is greater than upon
others."
His brows knitted.
"Do you hate us so?" she asked.
"Hate you?" he repeated wonderingly. "Why should I hate you?"
"Yet, from your tone, I judged that you had kept seclusion because
intercourse with my country-people meant defilement," she said boldly.
A flush crept up under his dark skin.
"Those are things I can not explain," he said; "but they have nothing to
do with hatred. I have heard much of the English heroes. Their deeds of
daring and self-sacrifice have filled my heart with love and veneration. I
know that they are the greatest and noblest people of the earth. I love
great and noble people. I do not hate them."
"I am glad," she said.
They had reached the gates which opened out on to the highroad, and as
though by mutual consent both came to a standstill.
"Your Highness has been most good to me," she went on. "I can find my way
perfectly now. I am only puzzled to know how I should ever have lost it so
much as to have wandered into your garden."
"Some sentry must have slept," he remarked grimly.
"But you will not punish any one?"
"Whoever it was, he was only the servant of destiny, like us all," he
said.
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