A distant faint hum of voices reached us. The queen laid her hand on my arm.
"It is the dream, Fritz," she said. "Hark! They speak of the king; they speak in low voices and with grief, but they call him king. It's what I saw in the dream. But he does not hear nor heed. No, he can't hear nor heed even when I call him my king."
A sudden impulse came on me, and I turned to her, asking:
"What had he decided, madam? Would he have been king?" She started a little.
"He didn't tell me," she answered, "and I didn't think of it while he spoke to me."
"Of what then did he speak, madam?"
"Only of his love--of nothing but his love, Fritz," she answered.
Well, I take it that when a man comes to die, love is more to him than a kingdom: it may be, if we could see truly, that it is more to him even while he lives.
"Of nothing but his great love for me, Fritz," she said again.
"And my love brought him to his death."
"He wouldn't have had it otherwise," said I.
"No," she whispered; and she leant over the parapet of the gallery, stretching out her arms to him. But he lay still and quiet, not hearing and not heeding what she murmured, "My king!
my king!" It was even as it had been in the dream.