Alec approached, and the others, including Stampoff himself, thought that he meant to make some private communication to the newcomer before beginning a debate in which all might share. But he walked past Stampoff, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.



"Now," he said, "I am free to explain why we seven are gathered here to-night. Joan Vernon, who was to have become my wife within a few days, left Delgratz two hours ago by the mail train for Paris. She was accompanied by Felix Poluski, and the only reason for this clandestine journey is contained in a few lines of farewell addressed to me by the lady herself. In that letter she speaks of a barrier that renders impossible a marriage between her and me. I want to know what that barrier is and who erected it, and I shall discover both those things here and now, if I have to tear the knowledge from the heart of each man present!"

"A strange threat, Alec," panted Prince Michael, whose prominent eyes were bulging in semi-intoxication, though indeed he seemed suddenly to have realized the tremendous import of the King's statement,—"a strange threat to be uttered before your mother!"

"My mother loved Joan," came the impassioned cry. "She took her to her heart from the first hour, and she will bear with me now in my agony. Yet it may be that even my mother has deceived me. I cannot tell. Some of you here know, perhaps all; but I vow to Heaven I shall not flinch from my resolve to extract the truth, no matter with whom the responsibility rests!"

Princess Delgrado, trembling and ghastly pale, tottered to the chair again and gripped its back to prevent herself from falling. Under less strained conditions, it must have seemed bizarre in a company of men for whom polite attentions to the opposite sex were a fixed convention, that she should seek such support when her husband was standing by her side; but in that startled gathering small heed was given to aught else than the King's thrilling statement.

Though aware of his mother's distress, Alec did not move from the position he had taken up, facing all of them, and with that hidden sword within easy reach. Ever a dutiful and devoted son, he continued now to glower at the half-fainting woman as though she alone held the key of the mystery that resulted in Joan's disappearance. His impassioned eyes sought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with the frenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question. In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; for when the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terror laden eyes met his in mute appeal, he whirled round on Marulitch.

"Perhaps this is an occasion when it is a woman's privilege to remain silent," he said bitterly. "So I begin with you, Julius. Save myself, you are the youngest here, and it would be fitting that you and I should determine this business. I warn you there will be no half measures! My life, at least, goes into the scale, and I care not who else adjusts the balance."

The pink and white tints had long fled from the Parisian dandy's complexion. In the dim light he looked livid, and his forehead bore bright beads of perspiration. But even Alec's fiery eyes discerned that he was not only afraid, but bewildered, and his voice cracked with excitement when he spoke.

"I declare by everything I hold sacred that I had no hand in this affair!" he said shrilly. "It is natural perhaps that you should suspect me, since I seem to have most to gain by any ill that befalls you; but, even in your anger, Alec, you should be just. No matter how fierce your emotions, you ought to realize that Miss Vernon's departure from Delgratz retards rather than helps any possible scheming on my part to succeed you on the throne."

"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask that covered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrived that my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see your purpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging your advancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed in the opposition manifested to my marriage. Your cunning brain conceived the notion that I would not abandon the woman I loved for the sake of fifty Kingdoms. You read my mind aright; but, if it was you who brought about her flight, for what devilish reason did you depart from the subtle plot that might well have achieved your ends by means which you, at least, would consider fair?"

The Greek spread wide his hands in that characteristic gesture of his. As it happened, for once in his life he could afford to be sincere. "I can only assure your Majesty in the plainest possible terms," he said, "that until I heard the news from your own lips, I had no knowledge whatsoever of Miss Vernon's journey. Were I asked outside that locked door to state to the best of my belief where she might be found, I should have said that the slight illness of which she complained this morning had probably confined her to her room."

For an instant Alec scowled at the President; but Sergius Nesimir's vacuous features so obviously revealed his condition of speechless surprise and distress that there remained only Stampoff, Prince Michael—and his mother.

Adhering rigidly to his scheme of narrowing the field of inquiry by putting the same straight question to each individual in turn, Alec next appealed to the man who had helped him to gain a throne.

"Paul," he said, "you who were my friend and have become my enemy, you, at least, will speak the truth. Tell me, then, who has done this thing!"

Stampoff strode forward. He feared no one, this determined advocate of his country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impending tornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "A little more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity in your heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her be taken away!"

Alec moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He felt that he was finally touching sure ground in the morass through which he was floundering. "She and all of you must remain!" was his grim reply. "Answer my question! Was it you who drove Joan from Delgratz?"

"I counseled it," said Stampoff, folding his arms defiantly, and apparently careless whether or not the King sprang at his throat the next instant.

"Ah! At last! Thank God for one man who is honest, though he seems to have acted like a fiend! To whom did you counsel it? To Joan herself?"

"No."

"Tell me, then, to whom?"

"I refuse."

"Stampoff, I shall draw a confession from you even though you die under my hands."

"I have faced death many times for the King of Kosnovia," said the harsh Serbian voice, "and I shall not shrink from it now, whether at the hands of the King or his foes. Send your mother away; then, perhaps, I may tell you what you want to know. The thing is done, and I, for one, shall not shirk the consequences."

"My mother again! Must she be spared though you have sacrificed her son?"

With a quick movement that sent tremors through Julius and the Greek, since he was compelled to pass close to both, he strode to the quaking Princess and caught her almost roughly by the shoulder.

"I feared this from the outset," he cried. "Did Stampoff make you the agent of his hellish work? Joan would trust you. Speak to me, mother! Was it you who wrought this evil?"

Her head was bent low, and she gasped something that sounded like an excuse. Alec recoiled from her in sudden horror. His hands were pressed feverishly to his forehead, and a hoarse cry of anguish came from his panting breast.

"I think I shall go mad!" he almost sobbed. "My own mother enter into this league against me! My mother——Oh, it cannot be! Stampoff, you, I know, would not scruple to sacrifice my dearest hopes to further your designs. Could you find none but my mother to aid you?"

He reeled as under a blow from an unseen hand, and at that unfortunate moment Prince Michael Delgrado thought fit to assert his authority.

"This ridiculous scene has gone far enough," he cried. "I was not aware that your pretty artist had quitted Delgratz; but it is quite evident that her departure is the best thing that could possibly happen for the good of the Kingdom. If Stampoff advised it, and your mother saw fit to point out to the girl the danger she was bringing to you and the monarchy, such action on their part has my complete approval."

Alec gazed blankly at the pompous little man. It needed but Prince Michael's outburst to stamp the whole episode with the seal of ineffable meanness and double dealing. He recalled the cowardice displayed by the Prince when Stampoff urged him to seize the vacant throne, and his gorge rose at the thought that Joan had been driven from his arms in order that this pygmy might secure the annual pittance that would supply his lusts in Paris. At that moment Alec was Berserk with impotent rage. His mother's complicity in the banishing of Joan denied him a victim on whom to wreak his wrath.

But there still remained a vengeance, dire and far reaching, which would teach a bitter lesson to those who had entered into so unworthy a conspiracy.

Leaping to the curtain which concealed the sword, he snatched it up and smashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of my monarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate to you what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. I believe that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know that Julius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, I proclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate! Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its members the best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people's rule than under that of either of the men who are so anxious to succeed me."

"Abdicate! Republic! What monstrous folly!" cried Prince Michael, his plethoric face convulsed with anger at this unexpected counterstroke.

"I am saying that which, with God's help, I shall perform!" cried Alec, despair falling from him like a discarded garment as he realized what his project would mean to Joan and himself.

"You may abdicate, of course, if you choose," came the scornful retort; "but you have no power to break the Delgrado line."

"My power will be put to the test to-morrow," said Alec. "I am not afraid to measure my strength against the pitiful cowards who struck at me through a woman's love."

"Pay no heed to him, Monsieur Nesimir!" piped Prince Michael, whose voice rose to a thin falsetto. "He is beside himself. If he chooses to vacate the throne, it reverts to me."

"A Republic in Kosnovia!" snarled Stampoff. "That, indeed, will mark the beginning of the end for the Slav race. A single year would wipe us out of existence. What say you, Beliani, and you, Marulitch? Why are you dumb? Was it for this that we have striven through so many years? Shall our country be wrecked now because a hot headed youth puts his vows to a woman before every consideration of national welfare?"

"The notion is preposterous!" growled Julius, gaining courage from Stampoff's bold denunciation; but Beliani tried to temporize.

"We are far too excited to deal with this vexed affair to-night," he said. "The King is naturally aggrieved by a trying experience, and is hardly in a fit state of mind to consider the grave issues raised by his words. Let us forget what we have just heard. To-morrow we shall all be calmer and saner."

"Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec sternly, fixing the hapless President with his masterful eye, "while I remain King you must obey my orders. See to it that notices are despatched to-night to the members of the National Assembly summoning a special meeting for an early hour to-morrow."

"Monsieur Nesimir will do nothing of the kind!" shrieked the infuriated Prince Michael. "I forbid it!"

"And I command it," cried Alec. "If he refuses, I shall take other steps to insure my wishes being fulfilled."

"Then I will tell you why your Joan has gone!" bellowed the Prince. "No, Marie, I will not be restrained!" he shouted to his wife, who had rushed to him in a very frenzy of alarm. She clutched at his shoulder; but he shook himself free brutally.

"It is full time you knew what I have done for you," he hissed venomously at Alec. "Stampoff and your mother and I, alone of those in this room, are aware of the fraud that has been perpetrated on the people of this country. You are not King of Kosnovia. You are not my son. Your father was a Colorado gold miner to whom your mother was married before I met her, and who died before you were born. For the sake of his widow's money I gave her my name, and was fool enough to fall in with her whim of pride that you should be brought up as a Prince Delgrado. I suppose Stampoff urged your mother to reveal the facts to that chit of a girl who has addled your brain, and she, fortunately, had sense enough to see that you can not continue to occupy the throne five seconds after it becomes known that you are a mere alien, that your name is Alexander Talbot, and that I, Michael Delgrado, who married a foreigner in order that I might live, and permitted an American child to be reared as a lawful Prince of my house, am the lawful King."

The little man strutted up and down the room in a fume of indignation, and evidently felt fully justified in his own esteem. Ever selfish and vain, he fancied that he had been the victim of a cruel fate, and he read the sheer bewilderment in Alec's face as a tribute to the master stroke he had just delivered.

But his self conceit wilted under the contemptuous scorn of his wife's gaze, which he chanced to meet when his posturing ceased.

Alec looked to his mother for some confirmation or denial of the astounding statement blurted forth by her husband. But she had no eyes for her son then. The wrongs and sufferings of a lifetime were welling up from her heart to her lips. The agonized suspense of the last few minutes had given way to the frenzy of a woman outraged in her deepest sentiments.

She relinquished the chair to which she had been clinging, and faced the diminutive Prince with a quiet dignity that overawed him.

"So that is how you keep your oath, Michael!" she said. "When I forgave your infidelities, when I pandered to your extravagance, when I allowed you to fritter away the wealth bequeathed to me by a man whose fine nature was so far removed from yours that I have often wondered why God created two such opposite types of humanity, time and again you vowed that the idle folly of my youth would never be revealed by you. Twice you swore it on your knees when I was stung beyond endurance by your baseness. No, Michael," and her voice rose almost to a scream when her husband tried to silence her with a curse, "you shall hear the truth now, if I have to ask my son as a last favor to his unhappy mother to still that foul tongue of yours by force!"

For an instant, she made a wild appeal to Alec. "Your father was an honorable man," she cried. "For his sake, if not for mine, since I have forfeited all claim to your love, compel this man to be silent!"

The belief was slowly establishing itself in her son's mind that the incredible thing he was hearing was actually true. Nevertheless, he was temporarily bereft of the poise and balance of judgment that might have enabled him to adjust the warring elements in his bewildered brain. It was a new and horrible experience to be asked by his mother to use physical violence against the man he had been taught to regard as his father.

He had never respected Michael Delgrado,—he could acknowledge that now without the twinge of conscience that had always accompanied the unpleasing thought in the past,—yet, despite the gulf already yawning wide between them, his soul revolted against the notion of laying a hand on him in anger.

But he did stoop over the spluttering little Prince and said sternly, "You must not interrupt my mother again! You must not, I tell you!"

Such was the chilling emphasis of his words that Delgrado's loud objurgations died away in his throat, and the distraught Princess, with one last look of unutterable contempt at her royal spouse, faced the other occupants of the room.

"I did harm to none by my innocent deception," she pleaded. "I was very young when I married Alec's father, who was nearly twenty years older than I. We were not rich, and we were compelled to live in a rude mining camp, where my husband owned some claims that seemed to be of little value. But from the day of our wedding our fortunes began to improve, and, in the year before my son was born, money poured in on us. That small collection of wooden shanties has now become a great city. The land my husband owned is worth ten thousand times its original value; but, unfortunately, when wealth came, I grew dissatisfied with my surroundings. I wanted to travel, to mix in society, to become one of the fashionable throng that flocks to Paris and London and the Riviera in their seasons. My husband refused to desert the State in which his interests were bound up.

"We quarreled—it was all my fault—and then one day he was killed in a mine accident, and I, scarce knowing what I was doing, fled to New York for distraction from my grief and self condemnation. My son was born there, and in that same year I met Prince Michael Delgrado in a friend's house. To me in those days a Prince was a wonderful creature. He quickly saw that I was a prize worth capturing, and not many months elapsed before we were married. I had all the foolish vanity of a young woman, unused to the world, who was entitled to call herself a Princess, and it seemed to my flighty mind that the fact of my son bearing a different name to my own would always advertise my plebeian origin; for I was quite a woman of the people, the daughter of a storekeeper in Pueblo. I cast aside my old and tried acquaintances, placed my affairs in trustworthy hands, and, when we set up an establishment in Paris, my infant son came to be known as a Prince of the Delgrado family.

"Once such a blunder is made it is not easily rectified; but during many a sad hour have I regretted it, for Michael Delgrado did not scruple to use it as a threat whenever I resented his ill conduct. At first a trivial thing, in time it became a millstone round my neck. As Alec grew up, it became more and more difficult to announce that he was not Prince Alexis Delgrado, but a simple commoner, Alexander Talbot by name.

"There, then, you have the measure of my transgression. It was the knowledge of the truth that drove that dear girl, Joan Vernon, from Delgratz this evening, because General Stampoff would not scruple to reveal the imposture if he failed to secure the King's adherence to his projects."

"God's bones!" broke in Stampoff. "I made him King, though I was aware from the day of your wedding that he was not Michael's son. King he is, and King he will remain if he agrees to my terms."

"Go on with your story, mother," said Alec softly. "I think I am beginning to understand now."

"What more need I say?" wailed the Princess in a sudden access of grief. "I have squandered your love, Alec, I have ruined my own life, I have devoted all these wretched years to a man who is the worst sort of blackmailer,—a husband who trades on his wife's weakness."

She turned on Prince Michael with a last cry. "I am done with you now forever!" she sobbed. "I have borne with you for my son's sake; but now you and I must dwell apart, for my very soul loathes you!"

She sank into a chair in a passion of tears, and Alec bent over her. He spoke no word to her; but his hand rested gently around her neck while his eyes traveled from Michael's gray-green face to Julius Marulitch's white one.

"I think we have all heard sufficient of the Delgrado history to render unnecessary any further comment on my decision to relinquish an honor that, it would appear, I had no right to accept," he said. "I have gained my end, though by a strange path. Will you please leave me with my mother?"

The one man present who felt completely out of his depth in this sea of discord took it upon himself to cry pathetically:

"The door is locked, your—your Majesty!"

"Ah, forgive me, Monsieur Nesimir," said Alec, with a friendly smile. "I had forgotten that. And, now that I come to think of it, I still have something to say; but we need not detain my mother to hear an uninteresting conversation. Pardon me one moment, while I attend to her."



CHAPTER XIV

THE BROKEN TREATY

Alec unlocked the door. The laconic Bosko returned his all sufficing "Oui, monsieur," to the request that he would bring Mademoiselle Joan's French maid to Princess Delgrado, since it was in Alec's mind that Pauline might be discreet.

Prince Michael, Beliani, Marulitch, and Nesimir had already formed themselves into a whispering group. Stampoff was seated apart, morose and thoughtful. The old man's elbows rested on his knees and his chin was propped between his bony fists. Princess Delgrado had flung herself forward on the table. Her face was hidden by her outstretched arms. This attitude of abandonment, the clenched hands, the convulsive heaving of her shoulders, were eloquent of tempest tossed emotions. She looked so forlorn that her son was tempted to return to her side without delay; but instead he walked quietly toward the four men clustered in the center of the room. They started apart and faced him nervously. It seemed that even yet they feared lest some uncontrolled gust of anger might lead Alec to fling himself blindly upon them. Had they but known it, he despised them too greatly to think of mauling them.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have one small request to make. Give me your word of honor—I will take it for what it is worth—that to-night's happenings shall remain unknown to the outer world, and that there will be no interference with my mother or myself before we leave Delgratz."

Prince Michael, who had recovered some of his jauntiness, looked at Alec with the crafty eye of a cowed hyena; but he said coolly, "There is nothing to be gained by publishing our blunders to all the world."

"Have I your promise?" insisted Alec.

"Yes."

"And yours?" he said to Marulitch.

"Of course I agree," came the ready answer. "I, like Prince Michael, feel that it would be folly——"

"Prince Michael!" snarled the royal Delgrado. "You must learn to school your tongue, Julius! From this moment I am King of Kosnovia. Let there be no manner of doubt about that!"

Alec might not have heard the blusterer. His calm glance fell on Beliani. "And what say you?" he asked.

"I agree most fully and unreservedly," murmured the Greek, conveying, with a deep bow, his respectful regret that such an assurance should be necessary. The greatly perturbed President had already quitted the room; so Alec turned to Stampoff. His manner was quite friendly. Well he knew that this fiery soul was not to be judged by the Delgrado standard.

"I will not inflict on you, my trusty comrade," he said, "the indignity of a demand that I felt was imperative in the case of some others present. Let us shake hands and think rather of what we have gone through together when I was King and you were my most loyal supporter, than of the poor climax to my brief reign that reveals me as an impostor."

Those keen eyes were raised in a half-formed resolution. "Is it too late, Alec?" he growled sullenly.

"For what?"

Alec's smile of surprise was the only bit of affectation he had indulged in that night. The fantasy flitting through Stampoff's brain was not hidden from him; but he wanted to dismiss it lightly.

"God's bones! Need you ask? Say but the word, and you will be more firmly established on the throne than ever. Trust me to find means to still those babbling tongues!" and Stampoff flung out an arm in the direction of the uncle and nephew, each manifestly anxious to hurry away, yet each so distrustful of the other that he dared not go.

"Paul, you are incorrigible," said Alec. "You ought to have been a marshal under Napoleon, who would have had no scruples. No, you will not see civil war in the streets of Delgratz as to whether a Delgrado or an American adventurer shall reign in Kosnovia. Yet, I thank you for the thought. It shows that you, at least, do not rate me poorly, and it is not in my heart to be vexed with you, though I owe this night's amazement to your striving."

"Be just, Alec!" whispered the Serb hoarsely. "Condemn me if you will; but be just! While Michael Delgrado lived, your reign would never have been secure. I knew that all along. You will go away now and marry the girl of your choice, and soon the memories of this downtrodden country will be dim in your soul; but think what would have happened to you, to your wife, and perhaps to your children, if Michael one day blurted out the truth in some fit of drunken rage, or if Beliani and that other white faced hound obtained evidence of your birth. That is why I was resolved to force you, if possible, to wed a Serbian Princess. Your marriage to a woman of our own race would have borne down opposition. And now what will happen? The future is black. Michael is unworthy to be a King; Marulitch, at the best, is a poor-spirited wretch; and after them there is no Delgrado."

"Well, I am sorry, too, in a way," said Alec. "I was beginning to love these Kosnovian folk, and I think I could have made something of them. Good-by, Paul. If we never meet again, at least we part good friends."

Stampoff rose and silently wrung Alec's hand. He walked straight out of the room with bent head and slow uncertain steps. For the hour his fierce spirit was chastened. He had done that which he thought would make for good, and it had turned out ill. His single minded scheming had gone awry. Another man in his position might have sought to curry favor with the new regime, whether of Michael or Julius; but Stampoff was not of that mettle; he wanted Alec to be King, because he believed in him, and now the edifice for which he had labored so ardently had tumbled in pieces about his ears.

Pauline came, and Alec went to his mother. He took her tenderly in his arms.

"Come, dear!" he said. "Joan's maid will help you to reach your room. Our train leaves at midnight, and Bosko and Pauline will give your maid any help she needs in collecting your belongings."

The Princess raised her grief stricken face to his, and it wrung his heart anew to see how that night of misery had aged her.

"Oh, my son, my son!" she murmured. "Will you ever forgive me?"

He kissed her with a hearty and reassuring hug. "Forgive you, mother!" he cried. "It is not I, but you, who have suffered through all these years. Have no fear for the future! Joan and I will make you happy."

"But she, Alec! What will she say when she learns the wrong I have done you?"

"What! Afraid of Joan?" cried he cheerfully. "Why, you dear old mother, Joan is taking all the blame on her own shoulders. You will find she agrees with me that you are the one to be pitied. You made a mistake for which you have paid very dearly; but in no possible way can it affect the remainder of our lives. There now, cheer up and prepare for your journey!"

The Princess left the room leaning on Pauline's arm, nor, in passing, did she bestow a glance on her husband. Prince Michael indulged in an ostentatious shrug, and might have said something had not Alec's gaze dwelt on him steadily. It is to be presumed that, not for the first time, discretion conquered Michael's valor.

"A word with you, Beliani," said Alec, going to the table and unlocking the drawer from which he had taken the money given to Sobieski. "You are now in charge of the State's finances, I presume. I have here a sum, roughly speaking, of one thousand pounds. To some extent, it is my own money; but the greater part consists of instalments of the salary of five thousand dollars a year I allowed myself as King. Do you think I have earned it?"

The Greek could only mutter a surprised, "Yes. Who would deny your right to a far larger amount?"

"Having your sanction, then, I take it," said Alec coolly. "Here too is my passport, issued in Paris, for which I believe I am indebted to you. It will now come in handy. May I ask in whose charge I leave the books and papers on this table? Some of them may be of use to the State."

"I am afraid I cannot answer that question," muttered the Greek, with a stealthy glance in the direction of the rival candidates.

"Well, settle it among yourselves," said Alec dryly. "Now I must be off."

Without another word he passed from the room that had witnessed his triumph and his fall. Yet his face was remarkably cheerful when he asked an attendant if Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir's whereabouts was known. The quiet elation in his manner led the man to believe that some specially pleasing news had transpired during the conclave in the royal bureau.

It appeared that his Excellency, the English milord, had gone to the music hall in the Koenigstrasse with a friend.

"Then send some one to say that he is wanted here at once," said Alec.

"Yes, your Majesty."

"Your Majesty!" How incongruous the two words sounded now in Alec's ears! By a trick of memory his thoughts flew back to the Montmartre review wherein the stage prototypes of the Parisian band of exiled monarchs addressed each other by high sounding titles and incidentally sought to borrow five-franc pieces.

"If I possessed some literary skill, I could write a review that would set the world talking," he mused, smiling to himself as he ascended the stairs to his own suite.

"What is the matter, old chap?" demanded Beaumanoir, strolling into his friend's dressing room a few minutes later. Lord Adalbert never hurried unless he was on horseback. He was in evening dress, and an opera hat was set rakishly on the back of his head. He was smoking, his hands were thrust into his pockets, and the mere sight of him served again to remind Alec of the larger world in whose daily round Kosnovia and its troubles filled so insignificant a part.

In an oddly jubilant mood, Alec took a pencil and wrote in large characters on Beaumanoir's immaculate shirt front, "Paris—with care."

His chum read. "The answer is?" he asked.

"We are leaving Delgratz to-night, Berty. That is all."

"You don't say!" He glanced down at the label. "Is this the address?"

"Yes."

Beaumanoir screwed his cigar firmly into the corner of his mouth. "I am pretty rapid myself, Alec," he grinned; "but you are too sudden altogether. Tell me just what you mean, there's a dear fellow."

"I take it you don't want to remain here without me, Berty," said Alec cheerily, "and I am off. I chucked up my job half an hour ago. Joan and Felix started by the mail train that left here at half-past five. We follow at midnight. My mother goes with us. As Bosko is giving her maid a hand in the packing, I must look after my own traps. Nesimir's servants would talk, which is just what I want to avoid. The two days in the train will give you plenty of time to learn the harrowing details. I have a pretty story for you; but it must wait. I am not cracked, nor sprung, nor trying to be funny; so you need not look at me in that way. I am out of business as a King, for good and all, and the sooner I cross the frontier, the better it will be for my health."

"Honor bright, Alec?"

"Every syllable. Now, get a hustle on!"

There was a tap at the door, and a servant entered with a note for the King. It was from Constantine Beliani, and written in French.

Prince Michael and Count Julius Marulitch have decided that, in the interests of the State, you ought to make a formal abdication of the throne, appointing the former as your successor, with special remainder to Count Julius.

I agree with them that this offers the best way out of an unfortunate situation, and I would respectfully point out the urgency that is attached to the proposal if you still contemplate leaving Delgratz to-night.

Alec bent his brows over this curt missive, which was not couched precisely in the suave words that might be expected from the Greek. Read between the lines, its meaning was significant. Michael and his nephew, hungering for the spoils, had patched up a truce. They were already contemplating another military pronunciamento, and Beliani, having made his own terms, was lending his influence.

If their demands were refused, Alec might find himself a prisoner, and the country would be plunged into a revolution. Under different conditions, he would gladly have measured his wits and his popularity against the triumvirate. A call to arms would win him the support of the great majority of the troops and of nearly all the younger officers. But a fight for a throne to which he had no claim was not to be thought of; yet he was adamant in his resolve not to advance the schemes of these rogues by any written statement.

He handed the note to Beaumanoir with a quiet laugh. "There you have the story in a nutshell," he said. "A few minutes ago I became aware that I am not Prince Michael's son. Although I strove to act fairly, my worthy stepfather is not content. He thinks to force my hand, because he fears the republican idea; but I may best him yet.

"Where is Monsieur Nesimir?" he said to the servant, to whom the English conversation was a sealed book.

"In his apartments, I believe, your Majesty."

"Have instructions been given for mounted orderlies to be in readiness?"

"I heard his Excellency Prince Michael say something of the sort to the officer of the guard, your Majesty."

The random shot had told. Alec felt that he was spinning a coin with fortune.

"That is right," he said coolly. "Give my compliments to Monsieur Beliani, and ask him to oblige me by coming here for a moment; Prince Michael and Count Marulitch, too. Tell all three that I am ready to attend at once to the matter mentioned in Monsieur Beliani's note."

The servant disappeared. Beaumanoir, who, of course, did not understand the instructions given to the man, was fumigating Beliani's letter with rapid puffs of smoke, and incidentally scratching the back of his right ear.

"Rum go this, Alec!" he began.

"Not a word now. You'll stand by me, Berty, I know. Go to my mother's suite and tell Bosko I want him instantly. Bid him bring a brace of revolvers, and see that they are loaded. Come here yourself with some ropes, leather straps, anything that will serve to truss a man securely, as soon as you are sure that Michael, Julius, and the Greek are safely in the room."

Beaumanoir scented a row. Lest any words of his might stop it, he vanished. He must have hurried, too, since Bosko had joined his master before Beliani's messenger reached the anxious conspirators with Alec's answer. There was no need to ask if the Albanian had brought the weapons. They were tucked ostentatiously in his belt. Alec looked him squarely in the eyes.

"I think I can depend on you, Bosko," said he.

"Oui, monsieur."

"Understand, then, that I am no longer King of Kosnovia. I am not Prince Michael's son. I mean to leave Delgratz to-night, and there is a plot on foot to prevent my departure except on terms to which I shall not agree. Will you help me to defeat it?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"Within the next minute I shall probably have visitors. They may show fight, though I doubt it, I want you to place those two pistols among the clothes in that portmanteau, and be busy, apparently, in arranging its contents. When I close the door, you must spring up and cover them with both revolvers. Do not shoot without my command; but make it clear by your manner that their lives are at your mercy. Will you do this?"

"Oui, monsieur," said Bosko.

"Here they are, then. Be ready!"

The door was ajar, and footsteps sounded on the stairs. Some one knocked.

"Come in," said Alec cordially.

Beliani was the first to enter. He pushed the door wide open to assure himself that he was not walking into a trap. He saw Bosko on his knees, rummaging in a trunk, and Alec standing in the middle of the room, lighting a cigarette.

"Come in," said Alec again. "My departure is rather hurried, as you know, and I have not a minute to spare. Have you brought the necessary documents?"

"It is a simple matter," said the Greek, advancing confidently. "Half a sheet of notepaper with your signature and our indorsement as witnesses will suffice."

Prince Michael and Julius, reassured by Alec's manner, and thanking the propitious stars that had rendered unnecessary the dangerous step they were contemplating, entered the room with as businesslike an air as they could assume at a crisis so fraught with import to their own future.

"We ought to be alone," said Beliani in English, with a wary glance at Bosko.

"Oh, for goodness' sake don't disturb my man! I have so little time and so much to do! Tell me exactly what you want me to sign," and he strode to the door and closed it behind Marulitch.

The eyes of the three were on him and not on the harmless looking attendant. During those few seconds they were completely deceived.

Prince Michael, finding the path so easy, took the lead. "Just a formal renunciation of the crown," he said. "Give as your reason, if you choose, your inability to fall in with the expressed desire of the Cabinet that you should marry a Serbian lady. It is essential that you should name me——"

The door opened and Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir came in leisurely. He carried an assortment of straps, rifled from leather trunks and hatboxes. He saw the three men facing Alec, and behind them Bosko's leveled revolvers.

"Not a bally rope to be had, dear boy; but here's leather enough to go round," he grinned. "By gad! what a tableau! I suppose you mean to gag 'em and then tie 'em back to back, eh, what?"

Alec picked up a chair. "Yes," he said. "Begin with his Excellency Prince Michael."

Julius Marulitch's right hand sought the pocket of the dinner jacket he was wearing.

"No, Julius," said Alec pleasantly, "move an inch and you are a dead man. Bosko has my orders, and he will obey them. You may look at him if you doubt my word."

Marulitch's well poised head had never before turned so quickly; but he shrank from a wicked looking muzzle pointed straight between his eyes. In such circumstances, the caliber of a revolver seems to become magnified to absurdly large proportions, and behind the fearsome weapon Bosko's immovable face was that of an automaton.

Beliani's olive complexion assumed a sickly green tint for the second time that evening. "I was right," he muttered; "but you would not listen."

"It is a common delusion of the thief that an honest man has no brains," said Alec coolly. "Now, Beaumanoir, get busy. Time is flying, and we have little more than an hour to spare."

Prince Michael, never noted for his courage, began to whimper some words of expostulation; but Beaumanoir's strong hands soon silenced him with an improvised gag, for the effeminate little rascal realized that his jaw might be broken if he resisted the stuffing of a towel into his mouth. In a few minutes the three were seated on the floor, securely bound, and unable to utter more than a gurgling cry, which would certainly not be heard by any one passing along the outer corridor.

Alec's cheerful explanation of his action must have been particularly galling. "You will remain here until such time as Stampoff decides that you may safely be set at liberty," he said. "Not you, but he, must provide for the future good government in Kosnovia."

"Thanks, Beaumanoir," he added, turning from the discomfited trio with a carelessness that showed they gave him no further concern. "Better be off now and get ready. Bosko, mount guard outside the door! Allow no one to enter on any pretext whatsoever!"



Then he busied himself about the room, followed by vengeful eyes. He had brought little into Kosnovia, and he took little away. The extraordinary simplicity of his life had rendered unnecessary the usual trappings of a King. He had worn no uniform save the plainest of field service garments. He possessed no State attire. His clothes were mostly those which came from Paris, and it amused him now to change rapidly into the very suit in which he had entered Delgratz, an unknown claimant of the Kosnovian throne. Bundling his trunks out into the corridor, he closed and locked the door, and the click of the moving bolt must have sent a tremor through the stiff limbs of the three worthies who lay huddled together inside.

Bidding Bosko hurry over his own preparations, he descended to the courtyard. A number of troopers, standing by their horses' heads, sprang to attention when he appeared.

"You can dismiss your men," he said to the officer in charge. "They will not be needed to-night."

Then he told an attendant to order a couple of carriages for half-past eleven. In the reception room he wrote a hasty note to Stampoff:

MY DEAR PAUL:—The legitimate King of Kosnovia and his heir apparent, not contented with the arrangement entered into in your presence, planned with Beliani a coup d'etat. I defeated it. You will find all three in my bedroom, the key of which I inclose. They are alive and well, and will stop there until it pleases you to release them. Perhaps you would like to consult with Sergius Nesimir, who by the time you receive this may have recovered the composure so rudely disturbed to-night. At any rate, the next move rests with you. Farewell and good luck.

Yours, ALEC.

Outside his mother's apartments he came upon Prince Michael's valet in whispered consultation with Pauline and Princess Delgrado's maid. In the rush of events he had forgotten the two domestics from the Rue Boissiere.

"His Excellency will not need your services to-night," he said to the man, "and it will meet his wishes in every respect if nothing is said to the other servants as to the departure of the Princess for Paris."

"Precisely, your Majesty," smirked the Frenchman.

"You, of course," he went on, addressing the maid, "will accompany your mistress."

"Yes, your Majesty," she said, quite reassured by Alec's matter of fact manner.

A glance at Pauline's honest face showed that nothing had been said of the curious scene witnessed in the bureau. To a certain extent, Joan's humble friend shared his confidence, and it was evident that she had not betrayed it.

The departure of such a large party probably created some speculation among the palace servants; but Nesimir did not put in an appearance, and no one dared to question the King's movements. Alec had purposely allowed the barest time for the drive to the station. The midnight train, not being an important express, carried few passengers, mostly traders returning to neighboring towns in Austria after conducting the day's business in Delgratz. The King and his companions, of course, were recognized; but again it was not to be expected that any official would trouble them with inquiries.

Having secured a compartment for his mother and Beaumanoir, Alec made for the station master's office, meaning to obtain a messenger who might be trusted to deliver Stampoff's letter, and he happened to notice a policeman standing near a carriage door.

A white face peered out through the window. It was Sobieski. The King and the waiter were quitting Delgratz by the same train!

Alec laughed, and the policeman saluted. "When the train has gone," said Alec, "I want you to deliver this letter to General Stampoff."

"Yes, your Majesty," replied the man.

"It is important, remember. Here are ten rubles, and ask General Stampoff, with my compliments, for the like amount. Take no denial from his servants. If he is in bed, he must be awaked. Say that I sent you, and there should be no difficulty."

Precisely at midnight the train started. Quickly gathering speed, it ran through the tumbledown suburbs of the city and rumbled across the iron bridge that spans the Tave River. In twenty minutes it was at Semlin, and Austrian officials were examining passports. It was almost ludicrous to find that they gave Alec and his mother a perfunctory glance; but Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir excited their lively suspicion. One man, in particular, mounted guard outside the carriage, and did not budge till the train moved on again.

"That chap remembers me," said Beaumanoir. "Did you notice how he glared? He was the johnny I slung through the window."

At an early hour in the morning Joan was peering disconsolately through the window of a railway carriage at the life and bustle of Budapest station. Felix had gone to purchase some newspapers, and the girl was absorbed in gray thought when an official thrust head and shoulders into the compartment and asked if the Fraeulein Vernon, passenger from Delgratz to Paris, was within.

"Yes," gasped Joan, all the slight color flying from her cheeks and leaving her wan indeed.

"Here is a telegram for you, fraeulein," said the man politely, and his civil tone, at least, assured her that she was not to be dragged from the train and subjected to some mysterious inquisition by Austrian police. "Sent care of the station master," he explained, "and we were urgently requested to find you. Kindly sign this receipt."

She scribbled her name on a form, and the man carefully compared it with the superscription on the telegram.

"Yes, that is right," he said, and at last the agitated girl was free to open this message from the skies. It was written in German, probably to insure accurate transmission, and it read:

My mother and I, together with Beaumanoir, left Delgratz seven hours later than you. Pauline accompanies us. We are returning to Paris after having settled affairs satisfactorily in Kosnovia. Please await our arrival in Budapest, and accept the statement without any qualification that there is no reason whatever why you should not do this.

ALEC.

The amazing words were still dancing before her eyes when Felix came running along the platform. He too had been identified by an official, and in his hand was another telegraphic slip.

"We need have no secrets between us now, my belle," he cried excitedly. "You guess what has happened."

"Alec has left Delgratz—he and his mother—Oh, Felix! if he really sent this telegram, why did he not explain things?"

"The explanation would be rather ticklish, when you come to think of it," said Felix dryly. "The Austrian Government might take too keen an interest in it. Don't you understand, girl? He has wrung the truth from some one. He is no longer a King, but a very devoted lover. Come, we can pass the day pleasantly in Budapest. There is nothing else to be done. No sense in running away merely for the fun of the thing. If Alec is not a King, there is no immediate probability of your becoming a Queen. You will be plain Mrs. Somebody or other. Now I wonder what in the world his new name is. The son of an American father would hardly be called Alexis. Horrible thought! You may have to learn to love him all over again as Chauncey, or Hiram, or Phineas. Tell me, mignonne, could you take him back to your heart as Phineas?"

Joan rose and stepped out on the platform. Poluski's chaffing outburst failed in its intent, though, to his great relief, she did not break down as he feared. "Perhaps he will not want me now, Felix," she said, and her eyes were shining.

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" cried the hunchback. "Why did he telegraph from the first wayside station after leaving Semlin? Alec not want you! At this moment he is more proud that he is a free born American than if a miracle almost beyond the powers of Heaven had made him a Delgrado."

Felix, cynic that he was, was secretly delighted when Joan discovered after breakfast that a blouse which caught her eye in one of the Budapest shops was much more suitable for traveling than that which she happened to be wearing. It was also significant that the dust which had gathered in her hair during the long journey from Delgratz required a visit to a coiffeur. These straws showed how the wind blew, he fancied.

And it was good to see the way Joan's face kindled when Alec clasped her in his arms. They said little then. The why and the wherefore of events they left to another hour; but when Joan extricated herself from her lover's embrace she turned to Princess Delgrado. The two women exchanged an affectionate kiss; each looked at the other through a mist of tears. Words were not needed. They understood, and that sufficed.

In a calmer moment Alec told Joan what had happened. He laid special stress on the fact that his mother was quite determined to renounce her title and revert to the name she bore during her first marriage.

"I never realized the tenth part of her suffering in Paris," he said, "though I knew far more about Prince Michael's conduct than he guessed. We must make it our business, Joan, to bring some brightness into her declining years. I have been planning our future all day in the train. Shall I become the fortune teller this time?"

"Yes," she murmured, "and perhaps I may forget that I have cost you a Kingdom."

He laughed gayly, just as he used to laugh on those bright May mornings when he waited on the Pont Neuf in the hope that he might be permitted to escort her to the Louvre.

"Never dream that I shall bring that up against you, dear heart," he said. "Delgratz ought to advertise itself as a sure cure for ambition. I liked the people; but I hated the job, and Kosnovia is already becoming a myth in my mind. I am rejoicing in my new name, Alexander Talbot. I hope you like it. My mother tells me that my father was one of the strong men of the West. I am called after him, it seems, and although my own name sounds strange to me I like the purposeful ring in it."

Joan laughed merrily. "Felix was teasing me this morning by suggesting that you might have been christened Phineas," she said.

"The wretch! And what if I was?"

She looked at him with a delightful shyness. "No matter what name you bore, you would always be my Alec," she whispered.

They were leaning over the balcony of an open air restaurant at the moment; so Alec perforce contented himself with clasping her hand.

"And now for my scheme, little girl," he said. "We will get married at once, of course."

She made no reply; but he felt the thrill that ran through her veins.

"Then," he went on, so gravely that she raised her eyes to his, seeking to catch his slightest shade of meaning; for her heart was still troubled by the fear that she had wrought him evil, "I will take you to America, my home. There is surely a nest for us out there. I have never understood it before; but often, as a boy, I felt the call of the West. It was natural, I suppose. We had many American friends in Paris, and my blood tingled when they spoke of the great rivers, the prairies, the ocean lakes, the giant mountain ranges, and the far flung plains of that wondrous continent which they describe with a reverent humor as God's own country. I feel that I shall win a place for myself in the land of my birth, and my poor mother is aching to go back there again."

He paused, and perhaps he hardly realized why Joan sighed with happiness; for she could believe, at last, that he had never a pang for his lost kingship.



"It is my home, too, Alec," she cooed. "I was born in Vermont. We are going home together."

"Yes, dear, no more partings. We shall not be wealthy, Joan. It seems that the miserable little humbug whom I have regarded as my father has wasted the whole of my mother's fortune by his extravagance. The only scrap left is a small farm near Denver, and even that would have been sold had not the crisis in Delgratz offered a wider scope for Michael's plundering instincts. It is a strange thing, sweetheart, but on the day we parted in Paris—the day the news came of the murder of Theodore and his wife—Prince Michael quarreled with my mother because she refused to sanction the sale of that last shred of her inheritance. In order to vent his spite, he had actually decided to tell me the secret of my birth in the very hour that Julius Marulitch announced the disappearance of the Obrenovitch dynasty."

"And the goddess sent you east instead of west," she said softly.

"Yes, my trial has been short and sharp; but she must have found me worthy, since she has given me—you."

They reached Paris next evening; but by that time the newspapers were hot on the scent of the missing King. So far as could be judged from the reports telegraphed by French correspondents in Delgratz, Stampoff had remained true to his dream of a monarchy. For lack of a better, Michael was King. Some one, Beliani probably, had issued a statement that the infatuation of Alexis III. for a pretty Parisian artist had led him to abdicate, and as soon as it was discovered that the Delgrado flat in the Rue Boissiere was again occupied by Alec and his mother, they were besieged by reporters anxious to glean details of a royal romance.

They decided, therefore, to leave Paris for London, where, under the name of Talbot, they might hope to escape such unwelcome attentions. It was no easy matter to shake off the horde of eager pressmen; but they succeeded at last, and when Alec and Joan were quietly married in a West End church, no one, except the officiating minister, had the least knowledge of their identity.

After a brief honeymoon in Devon they rejoined Mrs. Talbot, and the three sailed from Southampton, whither came Felix and Beaumanoir to bid them farewell. Bosko and Pauline were on the same ship. The taciturn Serb had positively refused to leave his master, though Alec pointed out that his fallen fortunes hardly warranted him in retaining a valet, while Pauline, whom recent circumstances had thrown a good deal in Bosko's company, declared that Paris no longer had any attractions for her. Without consulting any one the two got married, and astounded Mrs. Talbot one fine morning by announcing the fact.

At the last moment Joan almost persuaded Felix to go with her and her husband; but he tore himself away.

"I peeped into the Grande Galerie the other morning," he said, with a real sob in his voice, "and my poor Madonna looked so lonely! There was no one with her; just a few painted angels and a couple of gaping tourists. I must go back. Some day you will come to the Louvre, and you will find me there, le pauvre Bourdon, still singing and painting."

He began to hum furiously. When the gangway was lowered, and the great ship sidled slowly but relentlessly away from the quay, he struck the tremendous opening note of "Ernani."

Beaumanoir grabbed him by the collar. "Shut up, you idiot!" he said, not smiling at all, for he loved Alec. "This is England. If you sing here, a bobby will run you in. An', anyhow, blank it! why do you want to sing? This isn't a smoking concert. It's more like a bally funeral!"



CHAPTER XV

THE ENVOY

In the autumn of the following year, Joan was seated one day in the garden of her pretty suburban house at Denver. Not far away glittered a silvery lake; beyond a densely wooded plain rose the blue amphitheater of the Rocky Mountains; the distant clang of a gong told of street cars and the busy life of one of America's most thriving and picturesque cities.

She was somewhat more fragile than when she crossed the Pont Neuf on that fine morning in May eighteen months ago; but she looked and felt supremely happy, for Alec would soon be home from his office, where already he was proving that the qualities which made him a good King were now in a fair way toward establishing his position as a leading citizen of his native State. By her side in a dainty cot reposed another Alec, whose age might not yet be measured by many weeks, but whose size and lustiness proclaimed him—in his own special circle, at any rate—the most remarkable baby that ever "occurred" in Colorado.

Mrs. Talbot, Senior, tired of reading, was now dozing peacefully in an easy chair on the other side of the cot. The day had been warm; but the evening air brought with it the crisp touch of autumn, and Joan was about to summon Pauline, who—with honorable mention of the unchanging Bosko—had solved for the young couple the most perplexing problem of American life,—when the click of the garden gate caught her ear and she heard her husband's firm step. He stooped and kissed her.

"I hope you have passed the whole day in the garden, sweetheart," he said.

"Yes," she replied, "I was just going to send baby indoors. Will you tell Pauline it is time he was in bed; but do not disturb your mother. She's asleep."

"Baby can wait one minute," he said. "He looks quite contented where he is. There is news from Delgratz," he added in a lower voice. "King Michael is dead."

An expression of real sympathy swept across Joan's beautiful face. "I am sorry to hear that," she said. Then, with the innate desire of every high-minded woman to find good where there seems to be naught but evil, she added, "Perhaps, when he reached the throne, he may have mended his ways and striven to be a better man. Did he die suddenly?"

"Yes," and a curious inflection in Alec's voice caused his wife to glance anxiously toward the sleeping woman.

"Was there a tragedy?" she whispered.

"Something of the sort. The details are hardly known yet, and the telegrams published in our Denver newspapers are not quite explicit. There is an allusion to a disturbance in a local theater, during which the heir apparent, Count Julius Marulitch, was fatally stabbed."

"Oh!" gasped Joan.

"It would seem that this incident took place several days ago, but escaped notice in the American press at the time. Attention is drawn to it now by the fact that King Michael was found dead in his apartments at an early hour yesterday morning, and it is rumored that he was poisoned."

"How dreadful!" she gasped. "It will shock your mother terribly when she hears of it."

"It is an odd feature of the affair," went on Alec, "that the telegram describes the King as residing in the New Konak. I suppose he passed the summer months there, and had not yet returned to Delgratz. Delightful as the place was, I am glad now we never lived there, Joan."

She rose and caught him by the arm. "Alec," she murmured, "Heaven was very good to us in sending us away from that Inferno! You never regret those days, do you? You never think, deep down in your heart, that if it had not been for me you would still be a King?"

He laughed so cheerfully that the sound of his mirth woke both his mother and the baby.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Talbot, scanning the faces of her son and his wife with a whole world of affection in her kindly eyes.

"Well, nothing to laugh about, mother," said he, "since I was just telling Joan that the end has come for some one in Kosnovia; but——"

"Is Michael dead?" interrupted his mother, paling a little.

"Yes, mother, he is."

She bent her head in brief reverie, and when she looked up again she seemed to be gazing at the smiling landscape. But they knew better. Her thoughts had flown many a mile from Colorado.

"May Heaven be more merciful to him than he was to me!" she said at last, and that was her requiem for the man to whom she had given her best days. She forgave him; but she could not find it in her heart to regret his loss.

When the New York papers reached Denver, the small household—whose interest in the affairs of far off Kosnovia was little dreamed of by their neighbors—gleaned fuller details of the tragedy that had again overwhelmed the Delgrados. Many times did the conversation turn to the tiny Kingdom with which their own lives had been so intimately bound up. So far as the American press was concerned, the topic was soon forgotten; but Alec, having obtained a Budapest journal, found that Stampoff, Beliani, and Sergius Nesimir were taking steps to form a Republic.

"Sometimes," said Alec during their talk that evening, "it is the expected that happens."

"I suppose," said Joan musingly, "that the unlucky little Principality ought to prosper under a popular Government—unless——" She paused, and her husband was quick to interpret her thought.

"Unless they obtain the right sort of King," he cried.

"Perhaps that is impossible since you are here, dear," she said softly.

"Is that bee still buzzing in your bonnet?" he laughed. "I agree with you, Joan; it was a pity I let go so promptly."

She lifted her startled eyes to his. "Oh, Alec!" she cried, "you don't mean it!"

"I do, sweetheart," he said with a marked seriousness that puzzled her. "It was sheer selfishness that drove me from Kosnovia. I honestly believe I should have cracked up under the weight of empire; but just fancy what a wonderful Queen you would have made!"

"Oh, don't be stupid," she cried. "You almost frightened me."

Alec's mother put in a gentle word. "If ever either of you is tempted to regret the loss of a throne, you ought to devote half an hour to reading the history of Kosnovia," she said. "You are happy, and that is what you would never have been in the Balkans. A curse rests on that unlucky land. Never a Delgrado or Obrenovitch has reigned a decade in peace and security. It was a red letter day for Alec when you brought him away from Delgratz, my dear," she continued, with a fond pressure of her hand on Joan's brown hair. "None of us knew it at the time; but there are events in life that, like certain short and sharp diseases, leave us all the better when they have passed, though their severity may try us cruelly at the time."

The Indian summer day was drawing to a close, and Bosko entered to close the windows and pull down the blinds. The sight of him moved Alec to speak in that sonorous Serbian tongue which was already foreign to his own ears.

"Do you like America, Bosko?" he said.

The imperturbable one almost started; for it was long since he had heard any words in his own language.

"Oui, monsieur," he said.

"And would you go back to Delgratz if you had the opportunity?"

"Non, monsieur." For a wonder, he broke into an explanation. "I can go out here without expecting to be fired at from some hedge or ditch around the next corner, monsieur. You did not know those rascals as I knew them. They nearly got you once; but they tried a dozen times, and would have succeeded too, if Stampoff had not been too sharp for them."

"Good gracious, Bosko!" said his master. "This is news, indeed. Why was I not told?"

"There was no need, monsieur. Each time we discovered a plot we put every man in jail who might be suspected of the least connection with it. Moreover, had you heard of these things you would have interfered."

"Then, in the name of goodness, why didn't my protectors find out about the attack made by the Seventh Regiment? Surely there were enough concerned in that to supply at least one spy?"

Bosko hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Alec's mother. "Things went wrong that day, monsieur," he said. "Information that ought to have reached the General was withheld."

And Alec left it at that; for the man who might reasonably be suspected of offsetting Stampoff's vigilance was dead, and no good purpose could be served by adding one more to his mother's host of bitter memories.

A bell sounded, and Bosko went to the front door. He returned, his stolid features exhibiting the closest approach to excitement that they were capable of. Evidently he meant to announce a visitor; but before he could open his mouth a high and singularly musical voice came from the entrance hall in the exquisite opening bars of the "Salve Dimora."

With one amazed cry of "Felix!" Joan and Alec rushed to the door. Yes, there stood Felix, thinner, more wizened, more shrunken, than when last they saw him on the quay at Southampton. Joan, impulsive as ever, welcomed him with a hearty kiss.

"You dear creature!" she said. "Why did you not tell us you were in America?"

"An envoy always delivers his message in person, my belle. I am here on affairs of state. The telegraph is but a crude herald, and I was forbidden to write."

Alec dragged him into the room. "Business first, Felix," he said. "That is the motto of strenuous America. Now, what is it?"

"Beliani came to me in Paris," said the hunchback, affecting the weighty delivery of one charged with matters of imperial import. "He brought with him letters from Stampoff and Nesimir, which I shall deliver. He also intrusted me with a copy of a unanimous resolution of the Kosnovian Assembly, passed in secret session."

Joan's face suddenly paled, Mrs. Talbot's hands clenched the arms of the chair in which she was sitting, and the two women exchanged glances. None of this escaped Alec, who was seemingly unmoved.

"Behold in me, then," continued Poluski, "the Ambassador of Kosnovia. Delgratz wants again to see its Alexis, who is invited to reoccupy the throne on his own terms,—wife, infant, mother, Bosko, Pauline, even myself and the domestic cat, all are welcome. There are no restrictions. At a word from the King even the Assembly itself will dissolve."

Somehow, Poluski's manner conveyed that this was no elaborate jest, and Joan's lips trembled pitifully when, after one look at the youthful Alec, who was lying on a cushion and saying "Coo-coo" to a rattle, she awaited her husband's reply. He too looked at her in silence, and even Joan became dematerialized for one fateful moment. In his mind's eye he saw the sunlit domes and minarets of the White City. The blue Danube sparkled as of yore beneath its ancient walls. Through the peaceful air of that quiet Denver suburb he caught the sound of cheering crowds, the crashing of bells, the booming of cannon, that would welcome his return.

But he thought, too, of the fret and fume of Kingship, of the brave men and gracious women who had occupied an unstable throne and were now crumbling to dust in the vaults of that gloomy cathedral. He smiled tenderly at his wife, and his hand stole out to meet hers.

"I refuse, Felix!" he said quietly.

Poluski's piercing gray eyes peered at him under the shaggy eyebrows. "Is that final?"

"Absolutely final!"

Felix broke into a hearty laugh. "I warned Beliani," he chuckled. "No one could have written to me as Joan has done and yet want to return to that whited sepulcher down there in the Balkans. Well, here are my credentials," and he threw a bundle of papers on the table. "I have done what I was asked to do, and thus earned my passage money; and now, when I have kissed the baby and shaken hands all round, I will bring in my wedding present."

A minute later he danced out into the hall and returned with a huge roll of canvas. "I unpacked it at the station," he said; "so it is ready for inspection," and he spread out on the table a replica of the famous Murillo. "There," he cried, "since Joan would not come to the Louvre, I am bringing the Louvre's chief treasure to her. As it is the last, so is it the best of my copies. My hand was losing its cunning, I felt myself growing old, so I prayed to that sweet Madonna to give me one last flicker of the immortal fire ere it left me a dry cinder. Well, she listened, I think. Ave Maria! the great Spaniard himself would rub his eyes if he could see this. Now, I shall go back contented, and dream of the days that are gone."

His voice broke. He was gazing at Joan, at the glory of maternity in her face.

"You are not going back, Felix," said Alec. "Kosnovia has now lost both its King and its Ambassador. You are here, and here you shall stay."

"Yes, dear Felix," whispered Joan, "we have found our Kingdom. Our court is small; but there is always room in it for you."

So Denver heard wild snatches of song, and listened, and marveled, and a baby cultivated a strange taste in lullabies, and Pallas Athene forgot that one of her chosen sons dwelt in Colorado, or, if she remembered, her heart was softened and she forbore.

THE END



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters errors and omissions, and to regularize usage of hyphens and other punctuation.