But St.George listened, and though his mind applauded, it ran on ahead to the terrifying future.

This was all very well, but how was it to help her in the face of what was to happen in three days' time?
"Therefore," Olivia's words touched tranquilly among the flying ends of his own thought, "I am come before you to make that sacrifice which my love for my father, and my grief and my anxiety demand.

I count upon your support, as he would count upon it for me.

I ask that one heart be in us all in this common sorrow.

And I am come with the unalterable determination both to renounce my throne there"-- never was anything more enchanting than the way those two words fell from her lips--"and to postpone my marriage"-- there never was anything more profoundly disquieting than _those_ two words in such a connection--"until such time as, by your effort and by my own, we may have news of my father, the king; and until, by your effort or by my own, the Hereditary Treasure shall be restored." So, serenely and with the most ingenuous confidence, did the daughter of the absent King Otho make disposition of the hour's events.