shoulder, “this is very curious. Your tale came pat to the moment. Doubtless you will be able to tell us that you knew the king was not in the palace to give you the lie.”
He gave an order, and Perivale was seized and marched into the palace. “After all,” he said to himself, “that little green door seems not to have been as commonplace as I thought.”
And so it proved. An hour later the chancellor was summing up the matter to the satisfaction of all but the prisoner.
“It is clear,” he said, “what has occurred. His late lamented Majesty, in spite of all warnings, ventured through the green door. On the other side of that door lurked a fiend, a monster, capable of assuming the shape, and in some measure the appearance, of his victim. To rend His Majesty in pieces, to garb himself in His Majesty’s clothes, is the work of a moment; and, so garbed, with designs upon the throne itself, this monster presents himself at the palace gates. But though he can assume, to some slight extent, His Majesty’s appearance, he cannot assume His Majesty’s great qualities. Can he engage three swordsmen at once? He refuses even to try. Can he surpass in excellence of learning our wisest philosophers? He laughs at the idea of it. How then can he be that most endowed of all monarchs, our noble King Perivale?”
“True,” said Perivale grimly to himself. “How can I be?”
BUT there came an interruption in the cheers which greeted this pronouncement. Amid whispers which rose to shouts of “The princess! The princess is here!” Her Royal Highness made her way into the hall. And men murmured: “Now indeed we shall know if he be the king, for true love, such as the Princess Lilia has for His Majesty, cannot be deceived.”
“What is this they tell me, that His Majesty has been basely murdered?” she cried out. The chancellor explained.
“Then why do none of you follow him through the green door?” she asked scornfully.
The chancellor explained, not only how useless, but also how dangerous it was.
“Cowards!” she cried. “Afraid of a little green door!”
“It is rather a mysterious little door,” put in Perivale apologetically.
She wheeled round at his voice. “Who is this?” she demanded.
And now each man nudged his neighbor and muttered: “You see? She does not know him. It is not the king.”
The chancellor explained that Perivale was certainly an impostor, and that probably he was the wicked monster who had made away with His lamented Majesty.
“And yet he is not ill-looking,” murmured Lilia.
“Indeed no,” agreed Perivale. “There was a time when I was spoken of as the handsomest man in Wistaria.”
“Silence, fellow!” called those nearest to him, and hustled him out of her sight.
“Well,” said Lilia when all were silent again, “who is going through that door to find the king?”
Each man waited for his neighbor to answer.
“No wonder your king left you,” she said scornfully. “Show me the door, and I will go.”
So they went with her to the garden; and they watched her as she passed through the little green door. Then they came back to their prisoner.
“Perchance,” said one, “since we have caught the fiend who lurked behind the green door, she will come safely back.”
Suddenly, while they were questioning their prisoner, a commotion arose at the other end of the hall, and people cried, “The princess! The princess! She has come back to us!” And in a moment all were crowded round.
“What did your Royal Highness see?” they cried.
“There was nothing there,” she said, and looked long at Perivale; and she nodded at him as if now she understood; and Perivale smiled, and she smiled back at him.
“Did your Royal Highness find the body of His lamented Majesty?” asked the chancellor.
“I found the king,” said Lilia, smiling.
“Where? Where?” they cried.
“Here,” she said, and pointed to Perivale.
Then there arose a great uproar of talking, and one said “Yet why did she not recognize him at first?” and another “He has admitted that he is not the king,” and a third “But we know that the king is dead.” Then, as they talked thus, a whisper ran through them, like wind over corn, and none ever knew who started it.
And the whisper said:
“Is it the princess?”
When the whisper came to Perivale he threw up his head, and laughed loud and long.
“What is it?” said Lilia anxiously to him.
“My dear, they say now that you are not the princess, but an impostor like myself. This is indeed a magic door.”
And now the certainty grew that this also was a fiend, passing itself off as the greatly-to-be-lamented Princess Lilia. Then the chancellor was inspired; and to put the matter beyond all doubts, he ordered that Lilia should be taken beneath the portrait of the princess which had been sent to His Majesty as a wedding gift. And as soon as she stood beneath it there came a shout of derision, for all saw that, whereas the portrait was of a surpassingly beautiful lady, with regular features, the girl beneath was of no more than a certain wayward prettiness.
“Bind them together,” ordered the chancellor, “while we consider what to do with them.”
“I had not intended to give you a wedding ring so rough,” smiled Perivale, “but we are indeed joined together now.” He looked down into her eyes. “The painter did not do you justice,” he murmured. “You are something better than the Princess Lilia.”
But now the chancellor had made his decision as to their fate. Burnings, drownings, stonings, all these happy suggestions of the people had been considered, and rejected as beneath the merits of the case.
“I have,” said the chancellor softly, “a prettier plan. These two inhuman monsters have failed in their audacious plot. Think you how that failure will be punished by their brother fiends now waiting for them outside the green door! Let us drive them, then, through the door, and listen, safely on this side of it, to the vengeance which is wreaked on them!”
There was a shout of approval. Perivale and Lilia looked at each other, and a little sob of relief broke from her. Then, bound wrist to wrist, they were driven to the little green door.
“Last time,” murmured Lilia, “we went through the door as king and queen, and came out as man and woman. This time we go through as man and woman, and come out—how?”
“Perhaps as lovers,” said Perivale gently. “For that is again to be king and queen.”
She dropped her eyes, and the color came suddenly into her cheeks. “I wonder,” she whispered.
So for the last time they passed through the little green door together, and out into the world beyond.
