It shall be my duty and joy to
explain your motives and your actions. Have no fear. The hour will be
short and the fruit much the sweeter for the bitterness."
"Thunder!" muttered Harry Anguish. "You don't intend to slap him into a
cell, do you, Gren?" Baldos overheard the remark.
"I prefer that course, sir, until it has been clearly established that
all I have said to you is the truth. Count Marlanx must be satisfied,"
said he.
"And, Baldos, is all well with her?" asked the one we have known as
Ravone.
"She is being put to bed," said Baldos, with a laugh so jolly that
Ravone's lean face was wreathed in a sympathetic smile. "I am ready,
gentlemen." He marched gallantly away between the guards, followed by
Dangloss and Colonel Quinnox.
Naturally the Graustark leaders were cautious, even skeptical. They
awaited confirmation of the glorious news with varying emotions. The
shock produced by the appearance of Prince Dantan in the person of the
ascetic Ravone was almost stupefying. Even Beverly, who knew the
vagabond better than all the others, had not dreamed of Ravone as the
fugitive prince. Secretly she had hoped as long as she could that Baldos
would prove, after all, to be no other than Dantan. This hope had
dwindled to nothing, however, and she was quite prepared for the
revelation. She now saw that he was just what he professed to be--a
brave but humble friend of the young sovereign; and she was happy in the
knowledge that she loved him for what he was and not for what he might
have been.
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