"I cannot... bear it!" Paulina protested. "I am not... strong like... you. I want to be with you... to see you... to love you."

Prince Maximus laid his cheek against hers. "I shall think of you, dream of you, and wherever I am, I shall feel somehow that you are near me."

"I shall... feel that... too," Paulina replied. "However long we may be... parted... I some-how feel... one day we shall be... together."

Then his lips came down on hers.

She reverberated to the wonder of his kiss and felt the sunshine pass through her body and from her lips to his.

Suddenly he took his arms from her, moved away and disappeared through the thick shrubs. The rapture he had aroused in her body battled with her mind and forced her to face the truth that he was gone. Then the tears came. Slowly, agonizingly, they crept down her cheeks and she felt as if each one were a drop of blood from her heart.