The Keepers of the People

12. Two courtships (chs. xv–xvi, pp. 285–317)

Ruth and Ralph settle into an untouchable friendship — he is restrained by the laws of hospitality, she by her own honesty — and rule the country with Althea as a council of three. Lord Lisdor, meanwhile, makes love to Vashti, the old Prince's best-loved daughter, Mistress of the Mutes, who cannot speak; Althea discovers them, tells him what it will cost, and appoints herself Vashti's protector. The Princess Agnes, eaten by jealousy of Ruth, breaks out at dinner and is sent to her rooms for three months. Over the wine afterwards the old Prince says, "The woman must die."

Ruth and Althea capture a missionary who has broken his word and taught three Varandals to sing Onward, Christian Soldiers; Prince Ralph examines him, establishes that the people he wishes to convert are neither murderers nor thieves nor liars, finds that his one real complaint is their laughter, and condemns him — not as a Christian, but as a bad one.

13. The last path (ch. xvii, pp. 317–331)

Althea, in temper, lets the name Latchimi fall in front of the Princess Agnes. Agnes beats a mute maid into opening the gates, forces her way into the Pavilion of Wonderful Delights, and is knifed by Latchimi in front of the child. Ralph comes, refuses Latchimi's request to be killed by his own hand, and sentences her instead to be made mute and married among the mutes; and he tells her that she is his no more, because the dead woman was his wife. She says farewell, turns away so that he cannot stop her, and stabs herself.

14. The divorce and the duel (chs. xviii–xix, pp. 331–358)

Lord Lisdor asks the old Prince for a divorce and is given one, on terms: he trades Ruth for Vashti, and undertakes to stay in Varandaleel and help govern. Ruth is summoned to a court she has not been told the purpose of, asked four questions, and freed without being asked to consent. That night Ralph claims her.

Althea sees them from behind a fountain, and learns in a moment both that she loves him and that she has lost him. She accuses Ruth of robbing her, and challenges her to fight at dawn with pistols. Ruth accepts because she is a Falcon. At ten paces Ruth raises her pistol to the sky and thinks of Ralph; Althea takes aim at her breast, looks up at her face, and cannot fire. Ralph proposes the Varandal solution. Althea says the matter is Ruth's to settle, and Ruth refuses to settle it — "I leave it, on the knees of the Gods." Althea rides into the forest with the dead Princess's daughter on her saddle.

That evening Prince Raleigh marries Ruth to Prince Ralph and Vashti to Lord Lisdor. At the end of the feast Prince Ralph climbs the tower alone, looks out over a country full of bonfires, and hears laughter coming up from every highway.