The smoky crimson flare illuminated what seemed at a first glance to be a miniature fairy palace studded thickly with clusters of diamonds.

Long pointed stalactites hung from the roof at almost mathematically even distances from one another,--the walls glistened with varying shades of pink and green and violet,--and in the very midst of the cave was a still pool of water in which all the fantastic forms and hues of the place mirrored themselves in miniature.

In one corner the stalactites had clustered into the shape of a large chair overhung by a canopy, and Duprez perceiving it, exclaimed--he listened, and seemed satisfied; then, turning away, he linked his arm through Philip's, and said, "_Voila!_ A queen's throne! Come Mademoiselle Gueldmar, you must sit in it!" "But I am not a queen," laughed Thelma.

"A throne is for a king--will not Sir Phillip sit there ?" "There's a compliment for you, Phil!" cried Lorrimer, waving his torch enthusiastically.

"Let us awaken the echoes with the shout of 'Long live the King!'" But Errington approached Thelma, and taking her hand in his, said gently-- "Come! let us see you throned in state, Queen Thelma! To please me,--come!" She looked up--the flame of the bright torch he carried illumined his face, on which love had written what she could not fail to read,--but she trembled as with cold, and there was a kind of appalling winder in her troubled eyes.