Then she turned on the maid. "I am ready for you, now."

"Madame will retire?"

"You little fool! You know what I am ready for!"

The maid stood still. Her wide, bovine eyes, filled with alarm, watched the Countess as she moved swiftly across the room to her wardrobe. When she turned about again, she held in her hand a thin black riding-crop. Minna's ruddy color faded. She knew the Loscheks, knew their furies. Strange stories of unbridled passion had oozed from the old ruined castle where for so long they had held feudal sway over the countryside.

"Madame!" she cried, and fell on her knees. "What have I done? Oh, what have I done?"

"That is what you will tell me," said the Countess, and brought down the crop. A livid stripe across the girl's face turned slowly to red.

"I have done nothing, I swear it. Mother of Pity, help me! I have done nothing."

The crop descended again, this time on one of the great sleeves of her peasant costume. So thin it was, so brutal the blow, that it cut into the muslin. Groaning, the girl fell forward on her face. The Countess continued to strike pitiless blows into which she put all her fury, her terror, her frayed and ragged nerves.

The girl on the floor, from whimpering, fell to crying hard, with great noiseless sobs of pain and bewilderment. When at last the blows ceased, she lay still.

The Countess prodded her with her foot. "Get up," she commanded.

But she was startled when she saw the girl's face. It was she who was the fool. The welt would tell its own story, and the other servants would talk. It was already a deep purple, and swollen. Both women were trembling. The Countess, still holding the crop, sat down.

"Now!" she said. "You will tell me to whom you gave a certain small book of which you know."

"I, madame?"

"You."

"But what book? I have given nothing, madame. I swear it."

"Then you admitted some one to this room?"

"No one, madame, except—" She hesitated.

"Well?"

"There came this afternoon the men who clean madame's windows. No one else, madame."

She put her hand to her cheek, and looked furtively to see if her fingers were stained with blood. The Countess, muttering, fell to furious pacing of the room. So that was it, of course. The girl was telling the truth. She was too stupid to lie. Then the Committee of Ten indeed knew everything—had known that she would be away, had known of the window cleaners, had known of the safe, and her possession of the code.

Cold and calculating rage filled her. Niburg had played her false, of course. But Niburg was only a go-between. He had known nothing of the codebook. He had given the Committee the letter, and by now they knew all that it told. What did it not know?

She dismissed the girl and put away the riding-crop, then she smoothed the disorder of her hair and dress. The court physician, calling a half hour later, found her reading on a chaise longue in her boudoir, looking pale and handsome; and spent what he considered a pleasant half-hour with her. He loved gossip, and there was plenty just now. Indications were that they would have a wedding soon. An unwilling bride, perhaps, eh? But a lovely one. For him, he was glad that Karnia was to be an ally, and not an enemy. He had seen enough of wars. And so on and on, while the Countess smiled and nodded, and shivered in her very heart.

At eleven o'clock he went away, kissing her hand rather more fervently than professionally, although his instinct to place his fingers over the pulse rather spoiled the effect. One thing, however, the Countess had gained by his visit. He was to urge on the Archduchess the necessity for an immediate vacation for her favorite.

"Our loss, Countess," he said, with heavy gallantry.. "But we cannot allow beauty to languish for need of mountain air."

Then at last he was gone, and she went about her heavy-hearted preparations for the night. From a corner of her wardrobe she drew a long peasant's cape, such a cape as Minna might wear. Over her head, instead of a hat, she threw a gray veil. A careless disguise, but all that was necessary. The sentries through and about the Palace were not unaccustomed to such shrouded figures slipping out from its gloom to light, and perhaps to love.

Before she left, she looked about the room. What assurance had she that this very excursion was not a trap, and that in her absence the vault would not he looted again? It contained now something infinitely valuable—valuable and incriminating—the roll of film. She glanced about, and seeing a silver vase of roses, hurriedly emptied the water out, wrapped the film in oiled paper, and dropped it down among the stems.

The Street of the Wise Virgins was not near the Palace. Even by walking briskly she was in danger of being late. The wind kept her back, too. The cloak twisted about her, the veil whipped. She turned once or twice to see if she were being followed, but the quiet streets were empty. Then, at last, the Street of the Wise Virgins and the fiacre, standing at the curb, with a driver wrapped in rugs against the cold of the February night, and his hat pulled down over his eyes. The Countess stopped beside him.

"You are expecting a passenger?"

"Yes, madame."

With her hand on the door, the Countess realized that the fiacre was already occupied. As she peered into its darkened interior, the shadow resolved itself into a cloaked and masked figure. She shrank back.

"Enter, madame," said a voice.

The figure appalled her. It was not sufficient to know that behind the horrifying mask which covered the entire face and head, there was a human figure, human pulses that beat, human eyes that appraised her. She hesitated.

"Quickly," said the voice.

She got in, shrinking into a corner of the carriage.

Her lips were dry, the roaring of terror was in her ears. The door closed.

Then commenced a drive of which afterward the Countess dared not think. The figure neither moved nor spoke. Inside the carriage reigned the most complete silence. The horse's feet clattered over rough stones, they turned through narrow, unfamiliar streets, so that she knew not even the direction they took. After a time the noise grew less. The horse padded along dirt roads, in darkness. Then the carriage stopped, and at last the shrouded figure moved and spoke.

"I regret, Countess, that my orders are to blindfold you."

She drew herself up haughtily.

"That is not necessary, I think."

"Very necessary, madame."

She submitted ungracefully, while he bound a black cloth over her eyes. He drew it very close and knotted it behind. In the act his—fingers touched her face, and she felt them cold and clammy. The contact sickened her.

"Your hand, madame."

She was led out of the carriage, and across soft earth, a devious course again, as though they avoided small obstacles. Once her foot touched something low and hard, like marble. Again, in the darkness, they stumbled over a mound. She knew where she was, then—in a graveyard. But which? There were many about the city.

An open space, the opening of a gate or door that squealed softly, a flight of steps that led downward, and a breath of musty, cold air, damp and cellar-like.

She was calmer now. Had they meant to kill her, there had been already a hundred chances. It was not death, then, that awaited her—at least, not immediate death. These precautions, too, could only mean that she was to be freed again, and must not know where she had been.

At last, still in unbroken silence, she knew that they had entered a large space. Their footsteps no longer echoed and re-echoed. Her guide walked more slowly, and at last paused, releasing her hand. She felt again the touch of his clammy fingers as he untied the knots of her bandage. He took it off.

At first she could see little. The silence remained unbroken, and only the center of the room was lighted. When her eyes grew accustomed, she made out the scene slowly.

A great stone vault, its walls broken into crypts which had contained caskets of the dead. But the caskets had been removed; and were piled in a corner, and in the niches were rifles. In the center was a pine table, curiously incongruous, and on it writing materials, a cheap clock, and a pile of documents. There were two candles only, and these were stuck in skulls—old brown skulls so infinitely removed from all semblance to the human that they were not even horrible. It was as if they had been used, not to inspire terror, but because they were at hand and convenient for the purpose. In the shadow, ranged in a semicircle, were nine figures, all motionless, all masked, and cloaked in black. They sat, another incongruity, on plain wooden chairs. But in spite of that they were figures of dread. The one who had brought her made the tenth.

Still the silence, broken only by the drip of water from the ceiling into a tin pail.

Had she not known the past record of the men before her, the rather opera bouffe setting with which they chose to surround themselves might have aroused her scorn. But Olga Loschek knew too much. She guessed shrewdly that, with the class of men with whom they dealt, it was not enough that their name spelled terror. They must visualize it. They had taken their cue from that very church, indeed, beneath which they hid. The church, with its shrines and images, appealed to the eye. They, too, appealed to the eye. Their masks, the carefully constructed and upheld mystery of their identity, the trappings of death about them—it was skillfully done.

Not that she was thinking consecutively just then. It was a mental flash, even as her eyes, growing accustomed to the darkness made out the white numeral, from one to ten, on the front of each shroud-like cloak.

Still no one spoke. The Countess faced them.

Only her eyes showed her nervousness; she stood haughtily, her head held high. But like most women, she could not endure silence for long, at least the silence of shrouded figures and intent eyes.

"Now that I am here," she demanded, "may I ask why I have been summoned?"

It was Number Seven who replied. It was Number Seven who, during the hour that followed, spoke for the others. None moved, or but slightly. There was no putting together of heads, no consulting. Evidently all had been carefully prearranged.

"Look on the table, Countess. You will find there some papers you will perhaps recognize."

She took a step toward the table and glanced down. The code-book lay there. Also the letter she had sent by Peter Niburg. She made no effort to disclaim them.

"I recognize them," she said clearly.

"You acknowledge, then, that they are yours?"

"I acknowledge nothing."

"They bear certain indications, madame."

"Possibly."

"Do you realize what will happen, madame, if these papers are turned over to the authorities?"

She shrugged her shoulders. And now Number Seven rose, a tall figure of mystery, and spoke at length in a cultivated, softly intoned voice. The Countess, listening, felt the voice vaguely familiar, as were the burning eyes behind the mask.

"It is our hope, madame," he said, "that you will make it unnecessary for the Committee of Ten to use those papers. We have no quarrel with women. We wish rather a friend than an enemy. There be those, many of them, who call us poor patriots, who would tear down without building up. They are wrong. The Committee of Ten, to those who know its motives, has the highest and most loyal of ideals—to the country."

His voice took on a new, almost a fanatic note. He spoke as well to the other shrouded figures as to his comrades. No mean orator this. He seldom raised his voice, he made no gestures. Almost, while she listened, the Countess understood.

They had watched the gradual decay of the country, he said. Its burden of taxation grew greater each year. The masses sweated and toiled, to carry on their backs the dead weight of the aristocracy and the throne. The iron hand of the Chancellor held everything; an old King who would die, was dying now, and after that a boy, nominal ruler only, while the Chancellor continued his hard rule. And now, as if that were not enough, there was talk of an alliance with Karnia, an alliance which, carried through, would destroy the hope of a republic.

The Countess stared.

"No wall is too thick for our ears," he continued. "Our eyes see everywhere. And as we grow in strength, they fear us. Well they may."

He grew scornful then. To gain support for the tottering throne the Chancellor would unite the two countries, that Karl's army, since he could not trust his own, might be called on for help. And here he touched the Countess's raw nerves with a brutal finger.

"The price of the alliance, madame, is the Princess Hedwig in marriage. The Committee, which knows all things, believes that you have reason to dislike this marriage."

Save that she clutched her cloak more closely, the Countess made no move. But there was a soft stir among the figures. Perhaps, after all, the Committee as a whole did not know all things.

"To prevent this alliance, madame, is our first aim. There are others to follow. But"—he bent forward—"the King will not live many days. It is our hope that that marriage will not occur before his death."

By this time Olga Loschek knew very well where she stood. The Committee was propitiatory. She was not in danger, save as it might develop. They were, in a measure, putting their case.

She had followed the speaker closely. When he paused, she was ready for him. "But, even without a marriage, at any time now a treaty based on the marriage may be signed. A treaty for a mutually defensive alliance. Austria encroaches daily, and has Germany behind her. We are small fry, here and in Karnia, and we stand in the way."

"King Karl has broken faith before. He will not support Livonia until he has received his price. He is determined on the marriage."

"A marriage of expediency," said the Countess, impatiently.

The speaker for the Committee shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps," he replied. "Although there are those of us who think that in this matter of expediency, Karl gives more than he receives. He is to-day better prepared than we are for war. He is more prosperous. As to the treaty, it is probably already signed, or about to be. And here, madame, is the reason for our invitation to you to come here.

"I have no access to state papers," the Countess said impatiently.

"You are too modest," said Number Seven suavely, and glanced at the letter on the table.

"The matter lies thus, madame. The Chancellor is now in Karnia. Doubtless he will return with the agreement signed. We shall learn that in a day or so. We do not approve of this alliance for various reasons, and we intend to take steps to prevent it. The paper itself is nothing. But plainly, Countess, the need a friend in the Palace, one who is in the confidence of the royal family."

"And for such friendship, I am to secure safety?"

"Yes, madame. But that is not all. Let me tell you briefly how things stand with us. We have, supporting us, certain bodies, workingmen's guilds, a part of the student body, not so much of the army as we would wish. Dissatisfied folk, madame, who would exchange the emblem of tyranny for freedom. On the announcement of the King's death, in every part of the kingdom will go up the cry of liberty. But the movement must start here. The city must rise against the throne. And against that there are two obstacles." He paused. The clock ticked, and water dripped into the tin pail with metallic splashes. "The first is this marriage. The second—is the Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto."

The Countess recoiled. "No!"

"A moment, madame. You think badly of us." Under his mask the Countess divined a cold smile. "It is not necessary to contemplate violence. There are other methods. The boy could be taken over the border, and hidden until the Republic is firmly established. After that, he is unimportant."

The Countess, still pale, looked at him scornfully. "You do my intelligence small honor."

"Where peaceful methods will avail, our methods are peaceful, madame."

"It was, then, in peace that you murdered Prince Hubert?"

"The errors of the past are past." Then, with a new sternness: "Make no mistake. Whether through your agency or another, Countess, when the Cathedral bell rouses the city to the King's death, and the people wait in the Place for their new King to come out on the balcony, he will not come."

The Countess was not entirely bad. Standing swaying and white-faced before the tribunal, she saw suddenly the golden head of the little Crown Prince, saw him smiling as he had smiled that day in the sunlight, saw him troubled and forlorn as he had been when, that very evening, he had left them to go to his lonely rooms. Perhaps she reached the biggest moment of her life then, when she folded her arms and stared proudly at the shrouded figures before her.

"I will not do it," she said.

Then indeed the tribunal stirred, and sat forward. Perhaps never before had it been defied.

"I will not," repeated the Countess.

But Number Seven remained impassive. "A new idea, Countess!" he said suavely. "I can understand that your heart recoils. But this thing is inevitable, as I have said. Whether you or another but perhaps with time to think you may come to another conclusion. We make no threats. Our position is, however, one of responsibility. We are compelled to place the future of the Republic before every other consideration."

"That is a threat."

"We remember both our friends and our enemies, madame. And we have only friends and enemies. There is no middle course. If you would like time to think it over—"

"How much time?" She clutched at the words.

With time all things were possible. The King might die soon, that night, the next day. Better than any one, save his daughter Annunciata and the physicians, she knew his condition. The Revolutionists might boast, but they were not all the people. Once let the boy be crowned, and it would take more than these posing plotters in their theatrical setting to overthrow him.

"How much time may I have?"

"Women vary," said Number Seven mockingly. "Some determine quickly. Others—"

"May I have a month?"

"During which the King may die! Alas, madame, it is now you who do us too little honor!"

"A week?" begged the Countess desperately.

The leader glanced along the line. One head after another nodded slowly.

"A week it is, madame. Comrade Five!"

The one who had brought her came forward with the bandage.

"At the end of one week, madame, a fiacre will, as to-night, be waiting in the Street of the Wise Virgins."

"And these papers?"

"On the day the Republic of Livonia is established, madame, they will be returned to you."

He bowed, and returned to his chair. Save for the movements of the man who placed the bandage over her eyes; there was absolute silence in the room.



CHAPTER XX. THE DELEGATION

Prince Ferdinand William Otto was supremely happy. Three quite delightful things had happened. First, Nikky had returned. He said he felt perfectly well, but the Crown Prince thought he looked as though he had been ill, and glanced frequently at Nikky's cigarette during the riding-hour. Second, Hedwig did not come to the riding-lesson, and he had Nikky to himself. Third, he, Prince Ferdinand William Otto, was on the eve of a birthday.

This last, however, was not unmixed happiness. For the one day the sentence of exile was to be removed so that he might lunch with the King, and he was to have strawberry jam with his tea, some that Miss Braithwaite's sister had sent from England. But to offset all this, he was to receive a delegation of citizens.

He had been well drilled for it. As a matter of fact, on the morning of Nikky's return, they took a few minutes to go over the ceremony, Nikky being the delegation. The way they did it was simple.

Nikky went out into the corridor, and became the Chamberlain. He stepped inside, bowed, and announced: "The delegation from the city, Highness," standing very stiff, and a trifle bowlegged, as the Chamberlain was. Then he bowed again, and waddled out—the Chamberlain was fat—and became the delegation.

This time he tried to look like a number of people, and was not so successful. But he looked nervous, as delegations always do when they visit a Royal Highness. He bowed inside the door, and then came forward and bowed again.

"I am, of course, standing in a row," said Nikky, sotto voce. "Now, what comes next?"

"I am to shake hands with every one."

So they shook hands nine times, because there were to be nine members of the delegation. And Nikky picked up a brass inkwell from the desk and held it out before him.

"Your Highness," he said, after clearing his throat, for all the world as Prince Ferdinand William Otto had heard it done frequently at cornerstones and openings of hospitals, "Your Highness—we are here to-day to felicitate Your Highness on reaching the mature age of ten. In testimonial of our—our affection and—er loyalty, we bring to you a casket of gold, containing the congratulations of the city, which we beg that Your Highness may see fit to accept. It will be of no earthly use to you, and will have to be stuck away in a vault and locked up. But it is the custom on these occasions, and far be it from us to give you a decent present that you can use or enjoy!"

Prince Ferdinand William Otto had to cover his mouth with his hand to preserve the necessary dignity. He stepped forward and took the ink-well. "I thank you very much. Please give my thanks to all the people. I am very grateful. It is beautiful. Thank you."

Whereupon he placed the ink-well on the desk, and he and Nikky again shook hands nine times, counting, to be sure it was right. Then Nikky backed to the door, getting all tangled up in his sword, bowed again and retired.

When he reentered, the boy's face was glowing.

"Gee!" he said, remembering this favorite word of the American boy's. "It's splendid to have you back again, Nikky. You're going to stay now, aren't you?"

"I am." Nikky's voice was fervent.

"Where did you go when you went away?"

"I took a short and foolish excursion, Highness. You see, while I look grown-up I dare say I am really not. Not quite, anyhow. And now and then, like other small boys I have heard of, I—well, I run away. And am sorry afterward, of course."

Miss Braithwaite was not in the study. The Prince looked about, and drew close—to Nikky. "Did you, really?"

"I did. Some day, when you are older, I'll tell you about it. I—has the Princess Hedwig been having tea with you, as usual?"

Carelessly spoken as it was, there was a change in Nikky's voice. And the Crown Prince was sensitive to voices. Something similar happened to Monsieur Puaux, the French tutor, when he mentioned Hedwig.

"Not yesterday. We went to the fortress. Nikky, what is it to be in love?"

Nikky looked startled, "Well," he said reflectively, "it's to like some one, a lady in your case or mine, of course; to—to like them very much, and want to see them often."

"Is that all?"

"It's enough, sometimes. But it's more than that. It's being dreadfully unhappy if the other person isn't around, for one thing. It isn't really a rational condition. People in love do mad things quite often."

"I know some one who is in love with Hedwig."

Nikky looked extremely conscious. There was, too, something the Crown Prince was too small to see, something bitter and hard in his eyes. "Probably a great many are," he said. "But I'm not sure she would care to have us discuss it."

"It is my French tutor."

Nikky laughed suddenly, and flung the boy to his shoulder. "Of course he is!" he cried gayly. "And you are, and the Chancellor. And I am, of course." He stood the boy on the desk.

"Do you think she is in love, with you?" demanded the Crown Prince, very seriously.

"Not a bit of it, young man!"

"But I think she is," he persisted. "She's always around when you are."

"Not this morning."

"But she is, when she can be. She never used to take riding-lessons. She doesn't need them." This was a grievance, but he passed it over. "And she always asks where you are. And yesterday, when you were away, she looked very sad."

Nikky stood with his hand on the boy's shoulder, and stared out through the window. If it were so, if this child, with his uncanny sensitiveness, had hit on the truth! If Hedwig felt even a fraction of what he felt, what a tragedy it all was!

He forced himself to smile, however. "If she only likes me just a little," he said lightly, "it is more than I dare to hope, or deserve. Come, now, we have spent too much time over love and delegations. Suppose we go and ride."

But on the way across the Place Prince Ferdinand William Otto resumed the subject for a moment. "If you would marry Hedwig," he suggested, an anxious thrill in his voice, "you would live at the Palace always, wouldn't you? And never have to go back to your regiment?" For the bugaboo of losing Nikky to his regiment was always in the back of his small head.

"Now, listen, Otto, and remember," said Nikky, almost sternly. "It may be difficult for you to understand now, but some day you will. The granddaughter of the King must marry some one of her own rank. No matter how hard you and I may wish things to be different, we cannot change that. And it would be much better never to mention this conversation to your cousin. Girls," said Nikky, "are peculiar."

"Very well," said the Crown Prince humbly. But he made careful note of one thing. He was not to talk of this plan to Hedwig, but there was no other restriction. He could, for instance, take it up with the Chancellor, or even with the King to-morrow, if he was in an approachable humor.

Hedwig was not at the riding-school. This relieved Prince Ferdinand William Otto, whose views as to Nikky were entirely selfish, but Nikky himself had unaccountably lost his high spirits of the morning. He played, of course, as he always did. And even taught the Crown Prince how to hang over the edge of his saddle, while his horse was cantering, so that bullets would not strike him.

They rode and frolicked, yelled a bit, got two ponies and whacked a polo ball over the tan-bark, until the Crown Prince was sweating royally and was gloriously flushed.

"I don't know when I have been so happy," he said, dragging out his handkerchief and mopping his face. "It's a great deal pleasanter without Hedwig, isn't it?"

While they played, overhead the great hearse was ready at last. Its woodwork shone. Its gold crosses gleamed. No fleck of dust disturbed its austere magnificence.

The man and the boy who had been working on it stood back and surveyed it.

"All ready," said the man, leaning on the handle of his long brush. "Now it may happen any time."

"It is very handsome. But I am glad I am not the old King." The boy picked up pails and brushes. "Nothing to look forward to but—that."

"But much to look back on," the man observed grimly, "and little that is good."

The boy glanced through a window, below which the riding-ring stretched its brown surface, scarred by nervous hoofs. "I would change places with the Crown Prince," he said enviously. "Listen to him! Always laughing. Never to labor, nor worry, nor think of the next day's food—"

"Young fool!" The man came to his shoulder and glanced down also. "Would like to be a princeling, then! No worry. No trouble. Always play, play!" He gripped the boy's shoulder. "Look, lad, at the windows about. That is what it is to be a prince. Wherever you look, what do you see? Stablemen? Grooms? Bah, secret agents, watching that no assassin, such perhaps as you and I, lurk about."

The boy opened wide, incredulous eyes. "But who would attack a child?" he asked.

"There be those, nevertheless," said the man mockingly. "Even a child may stand in the way of great changes."

He stopped and stared, wiping the glass clear that he might see better. Nikky without his cap, disheveled and flushed with exertion, was making a frantic shot at the white ball, rolling past him. Where had he seen such a head, such a flying mop of hair? Ah! He remembered. It was the flying young devil who had attacked him and the others that night in the by-street, when Peter Niburg lay stunned!

Miss Braithwaite had a bad headache that afternoon, and the Crown Prince drove out with his aunt. The Archduchess Annunciata went shopping. Soon enough she would have Hedwig's trousseau on her mind, so that day she bought for Hilda—Hilda whose long legs had a way of growing out of skirts, and who was developing a taste of her own in clothes.

So Hilda and her mother shopped endlessly, and the Crown Prince sat in the carriage and watched the people. The man beside the coachman sat with alert eyes, and there were others who scanned the crowd intently. But it was a quiet, almost an adoring crowd, and there was even a dog, to Prince Ferdinand William Otto's huge delight.

The man who owned the dog, seeing the child's eyes on him, put him through his tricks. Truly a wonderful dog, that would catch things on its nose and lie dead, rousing only to a whistle which its owner called Gabriel's trumpet.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto, growing excited, leaned quite out of the window. "What is your dog's name?" he inquired, in his clear treble.

The man took off his hat and bowed. "Toto, Highness. He is of French origin."

"He is a very nice dog. I have always wanted a dog like that. He must be a great friend."

"A great friend, Highness." He would have expatiated on the dog, but he was uncertain of the etiquette of the procedure. His face beamed with pleasure, however. Then a splendid impulse came to him. This dog, his boon companion, he would present to the Crown Prince. It was all he had, and he would give it, freely, even though it left him friendless.

But here again he was at a loss. Was it the proper thing? Did one do such things in this fashion, or was there a procedure? He cocked an eye at the box of the carriage, but the two men sat impressive, immobile.

Finally he made up his mind. Hat in hand, he stepped forward. "Highness," he said nervously, "since the dog pleases you, I—I would present him to you."

"To me?" The Crown Prince's voice was full of incredulous joy.

"Yes, Highness. If such a thing be permissible."

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

"He is the best I have, Highness. I wish to offer my best."

Prince, Ferdinand William Otto almost choked with excitement. "I have always wanted one," he cried. "If you are certain you can spare him, I'll be very good to him. No one," he said, "ever gave me a dog before. I'd like to have him now, if I may."

The crowd was growing. It pressed closer, pleased at the boy's delight. Truly they were participating in great things. A small cheer and many smiles followed the lifting of the dog through the open window of the carriage. And the dog was surely a dog to be proud of. Already it shook hands with the Crown Prince.

Perhaps, in that motley gathering, there were some who viewed the scene with hostile eyes, some who saw, not a child glowing with delight over a gift, but one of the hated ruling family, a barrier, an obstacle in the way of freedom. But if such there were, they were few. It was, indeed, as the Terrorists feared. The city loved the boy.

Annunciata, followed by an irritated Hilda, came out of the shop. Hilda's wardrobe had been purchased, and was not to her taste.

The crowd opened, hats were doffed, backs bent. The Archduchess moved haughtily, looking neither to the right nor left. Her coming brought no enthusiasm. Perhaps the curious imagination of the mob found her disappointing. She did not look like an Archduchess. She looked, indeed, like an unnamiable spinster of the middle class. Hilda, too, was shy and shrinking, and wore an unbecoming hat. Of the three, only the Crown Prince looked royal and as he should have looked.

"Good Heavens," cried the Archduchess, and stared into the carriage. "Otto!"

"He is mine," said the Crown Prince fondly. "He is the cleverest dog. He can do all sorts of things."

"Put him out."

"But he is mine," protested Ferdinand William Otto. "He is a gift. That gentleman there, in the corduroy jacket—"

"Put him out," said the Archduchess Annunciata.

There was nothing else to do. The Crown Prince did not cry. He was much too proud. He thanked the donor again carefully, and regretted that he could not accept the dog. He said it was a wonderful dog, and just the sort he liked. And the carriage drove away.

He went back to the Palace, and finding that the governess still had a headache, settled down to the burnt-wood frame. Once he glanced up at the woolen dog on its shelf at the top of the cabinet. "Well, anyhow," he said sturdily, "I still have you."



CHAPTER XXI. AS A MAN MAY LOVE A WOMAN

Hedwig came to tea that afternoon. She came in softly, and defiantly, for she was doing a forbidden thing, but Prince Ferdinand William Otto had put away the frame against such a contingency. He had, as a matter of fact, been putting cold cloths on Miss Braithwaite's forehead.

"I always do it," he informed Hedwig. "I like doing it. It gives me something to do. She likes them rather dry, so the water doesn't run down her neck."

Hedwig made a short call on the governess, prostrate on the couch in her sitting-room. The informality of the family relationship had, during her long service, been extended to include the Englishwoman, who in her turn found nothing incongruous in the small and kindly services of the little Prince. So Hedwig sat beside her for a moment, and turned the cold bandage over to freshen it.

Had Miss Braithwaite not been ill, Hedwig would have talked things over with her then. There was no one else to whom she could go. Hilda refused to consider the prospect of marriage as anything but pleasurable, and between her mother and Hedwig there had never been any close relationship.

But Miss Braithwaite lay motionless, her face set in lines of suffering, and after a time Hedwig rose and tiptoed out of the room.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto was excited. Tea had already come, and on the rare occasions when the governess was ill, it was his privilege to pour the tea.

"Nikky is coming," he said rapidly, "and the three of us will have a party. Please don't tell me how you like your tea, and see if I can remember."

"Very well, dear," Hedwig said gently, and went to the window.

Behind her Prince Ferdinand William Otto was in a bustle of preparation. Tea in the study was an informal function, served in the English manner, without servants to bother. The Crown Prince drew up a chair before the tea service, and put a cushion on it. He made a final excursion to Miss Braithwaite and, returning, climbed on to his chair.

"Now, when Nikky comes, we are all ready," he observed.

Nikky entered almost immediately.

As a matter of fact, although he showed no trace of it, Nikky had been having an extremely bad time since his return; the Chancellor, who may or may not have known that his heart was breaking, had given him a very severe scolding on the way back from Wedeling. It did Nikky good, too, for it roused him to his own defense, and made him forget, for a few minutes anyhow, that life was over for him, and that the Chancellor carried his death sentence in his old leather dispatch case.

After that, arriving in the capital, they had driven to the little office in a back street, and there Nikky had roused himself again enough to give a description of Peter Niburg, and to give the location of the house where he lived. But he slumped again after that, ate no dinner, and spent a longish time in the Place, staring up at Annunciata's windows, where he had once seen Hedwig on the balcony.

But of course Hedwig had not learned of his return, and was sitting inside, exactly as despairing as he was, but obliged to converse with her mother in the absence of the Countess. The Archduchess insisted on talking French, for practice, and they got into quite a wrangle over a verb. And as if to add to the general depression, Hilda had been reminded of what anniversary it was, and was told to play hymns only. True, now and then, hearing her mother occupied, she played them in dotted time, which was a bit more cheerful.

Then, late in the evening, Nikky was summoned to the King's bedroom, and came out pale, with his shoulders very square. He had received a real wigging this time, and even contemplated throwing himself in the river. Only he could swim so damnably well!

But he had the natural elasticity of youth, and a sort of persistent belief in his own luck, rather like the Chancellor's confidence in seven as a number—a confidence, by the way, which the Countess could easily have shaken. So he had wakened the next morning rather cheerful than otherwise, and over a breakfast of broiled ham had refused to look ahead farther than the day.

That afternoon, in the study, Nikky hesitated when he saw Hedwig. Then he came and bent low over her hand. And Hedwig, because every instinct yearned to touch his shining, bent head, spoke to him very calmly, was rather distant, a little cold.

"You have been away, I think?" she said.

"For a day or two, Highness."

The Crown Prince put a small napkin around the handle of the silver teapot. He knew from experience that it was very hot. His face was quite screwed up with exertion.

"And to-day," said Nikky reproachfully, "to-day you did not ride."

"I did not feel like riding," Hedwig responded listlessly. "I am tired. I think I am always tired."

"Lemon and two lumps," muttered the Crown Prince. "That's Nikky's, Hedwig. Give it to him, please."

Nikky went a trifle pale as their fingers touched. But he tasted his tea, and pronounced it excellent.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto chattered excitedly. He told of the dog, dilating on its cleverness, but passing politely over the manner of its return. Now and then Hedwig glanced at Nikky, when he was not looking, and always, when they dared, the young soldier's eyes were on her.

"She will take some tea without sugar," announced the Crown Prince.

While he poured it, Hedwig was thinking. Was it possible that Nikky, of every one, should have been chosen to carry to Karl the marriage arrangements? What an irony! What a jest! It was true there was a change in him. He looked subdued, almost sad.

"To Karnia?" she asked, when Prince Ferdinand William Otto had again left the room. "Officially?"

"Not—exactly."

"Where, in Karnia?"

"I ended," Nikky confessed, "at Wedeling."

Hedwig gazed at him, her elbows propped on the tea-table. "Then," she said, "I think you know."

"I know, Highness."

"And you have nothing to say?"

Nikky looked at her with desperate eyes. "What can I say, Highness? Only that—it is very terrible to me—that I—" He rose abruptly and stood looking down at her.

"That you—" said Hedwig softly.

"Highness," Nikky began huskily, "you know what I would say. And that I cannot. To take advantage of Otto's fancy for me, a child's liking, to violate the confidence of those who placed me here—I am doing that, every moment."

"What about me?" Hedwig asked. "Do I count for nothing? Does it not matter at all how I feel, whether I am happy or wretched? Isn't that as important as honor?"

Nikky flung out his hands. "You know," he said rapidly. "What can I tell you that you do not know a thousand times? I love you. Not as a subject may adore his princess, but as a man loves a woman."

"I too!" said Hedwig. And held out her hands.

But he did not take them. Almost it was as though he would protect her from herself. But he closed his eyes for a moment, that he might not see that appealing gesture. "I, who love you more than life, who would, God help me, forfeit eternity for you—I dare not take you in my arms."

Hedwig's arms fell. She drew herself up. "Love!" she said. "I do not call that love."

"It is greater love than you know," said poor Nikky. But all his courage died a moment later, and his resolution with it, for without warning Hedwig dropped her head on her hands and, crouching forlornly, fell to sobbing.

"I counted on you," she said wildly. "And you are like the others. No one cares how wretched I am. I wish I might die."

Then indeed Nikky was lost. In an instant he was on his knees beside her, his arms close about her, his head bowed against her breast. And Hedwig relaxed to his embrace. When at last he turned and looked up at her, it was Hedwig who bent and kissed him.

"At least," she whispered, "we have had this, We can always remember, whatever comes, that we have had this."

But Nikky was of very human stuff, and not the sort that may live by memories. He was very haggard when he rose to his feet—haggard, and his mouth was doggedly set. "I will never give you up, now," he said.

Brave words, of course. But as he said them he realized their futility. The eyes he turned on her were, as he claimed her, without hope. For there was no escape. He had given his word to stay near the Crown Prince, always to watch him, to guard him with his life, if necessary. And he had promised, at least, not to block the plans for the new alliance.

Hedwig, with shining eyes, was already planning.

"We will go away, Nikky," she said. "And it, must be soon, because otherwise—"

Nikky dared not touch her again, knowing what he had to say. "Dearest," he said, bending toward her, "that is what we cannot do."

"No?" She looked up, puzzled, but still confident dent. "And why, cowardly one?"

"Because I have given my word to remain with the Crown Prince." Then, seeing that she still did not comprehend, he explained, swiftly. After all, she had a right to know, and he was desperately anxious that she should understand. He stood, as many a man has stood before, between love and loyalty to his king, and he was a soldier. He had no choice.

It was terrible to him to see the light die out of her eyes. But even as he told her of the dangers that compassed the child and possibly others of the family, he saw that they touched her remotely, if at all. What she saw, and what he saw, through her eyes, was not riot and anarchy, a threatened throne, death itself. She saw only a vista of dreadful years, herself their victim. She saw her mother's bitter past. She saw the austere face of her grandmother, hiding behind that mask her disappointments.

But all she said, when Nikky finished, was: "I might have known it. Of course they would get me, as they did the others." But a moment later she rose and threw out her arms. "How skillful they are! They knew about it. It is all a part of the plot. I do not believe there is danger. All my life I have heard them talk. That is all they do—talk and plan and plot, and do things in secret. They made you promise never to desert Otto, so that their arrangements need not be interfered with. Oh, I know them, better than you do. They are all cruel. It is the blood."

What Nikky would have said to this was lost by the return of Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He came in, carrying the empty cup carefully. "She took it all," he said, "and she feels much better. I hope you didn't eat all the bread and butter."

Reassured as to this by a glance, he climbed to his chair. "We're all very happy, aren't we?" he observed. "It's quite a party. When I grow up I shall ask you both to tea every day."

That evening the Princess Hedwig went unannounced to her grandfather's apartment, and demanded to be allowed to enter.

A gentleman-in-waiting bowed deeply, but stood before the door. "Your Highness must pardon my reminding Your Highness," he said firmly, "that no one may enter His Majesty's presence without permission."

"Then go in," said Hedwig, in a white rage, "and get the permission."

The gentleman-in-waiting went in, very deliberately, because his dignity was outraged. The moment he had gone, however, Hedwig flung the door open, and followed, standing, a figure of tragic defiance, inside the heavy curtains of the King's bedroom.

"There is no use saying you won't see me, grandfather. For here I am."

They eyed each other, the one, it must be told, a trifle uneasily, the other desperately. Then into the King's eyes came a flash of admiration, and just a gleam of amusement.

"So I perceive," he said. "Come here, Hedwig."

The gentleman-in-waiting bowed himself out. His hands, in their tidy white gloves, would have liked to box Hedwig's ears. He was very upset. If this sort of thing went on, why not a republic at once and be done with it?

A Sister of Charity was standing by the King's bed. She had cared for him through many illnesses. In the intervals she retired to her cloister and read holy books and sewed for the poor. Even now, in her little chamber off the bedroom, where bottles sat in neat rows, covered with fresh towels, there lay a small gray flannel petticoat to warm the legs of one of the poor.

The sister went out, her black habit dragging, but she did not sew. She was reading a book on the miracles accomplished by pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of the Angels, in the mountains. Could the old King but go there, she felt, he would be cured. Or failing that, if there should go for him some emissary, pure in heart and of high purpose, it might avail. Over this little book she prayed for courage to make the suggestion. Had she thought of it sooner, she would have spoken to Father Gregory. But the old priest had gone back to his people, to his boys' school, to his thousand duties in the hills.

Sometime later she heard bitter crying in the royal bedchamber, and the King's tones, soothing now and very sad.

"There is a higher duty than happiness," he said. "There are greater things than love. And one day you will know this."

When she went in Hedwig had gone, and the old King, lying in his bed, was looking at the portrait a his dead son.



CHAPTER XXII. AT ETZEL

The following morning the Countess Loschek left for a holiday. Minna, silent and wretched, had packed her things for her, moving about the room like a broken thing. And the Countess had sat in a chair by a window, and said nothing. She sent away food untasted, took no notice of the packing, and stared, hour after hour, ahead of her.

Certain things were clear enough. Karl could not now be reached by the old methods. She had, casting caution to the winds, visited the shop where Peter Niburg was employed. But he was not there, and the proprietor, bowing deeply, disclaimed all knowledge of his whereabouts. She would have to go to Karl herself, a difficult matter now. She would surely be watched. And the thousand desperate plans that she thought of for escaping from the country and hiding herself,—in America, perhaps,—those were impossible for the same reason. She was helpless.

She had the choice of but two alternatives, to do as she had been commanded, for it amounted to that, or to die. The Committee would not kill her, in case she failed them. It would be unnecessary. Enough that they place the letter and the code in the hands of the authorities, by some anonymous means. Well enough she knew the Chancellor's inflexible anger, and the Archduchess Annunciata's cold rage. They would sweep her away with a gesture, and she would die the death of all traitors.

A week! Time had been when a week of the dragging days at the Palace had seemed eternity. Now the hours flew. The gold clock on her dressing-table, a gift from the Archduchess, marked them with flying hands.

She was, for the first time, cut off from the gossip of the Palace. The Archduchess let her severely alone. She disliked having anything interfere with her own comfort, disliked having her routine disturbed. But the Countess surmised a great deal. She guessed that Hedwig would defy them, and that they would break her spirit with high words. She surmised preparations for a hasty marriage—how hasty she dared not think. And she guessed, too, the hopeless predicament of Nikky Larisch.

She sat and stared ahead.

During the afternoon came a package, rather unskillfully tied with a gilt cord. Opening it, the Countess disclosed a glove-box of wood, with a design of rather shaky violets burnt into the cover. Inside was a note:

I am very sorry you are sick. This is to put your gloves in when you travel. Please excuse the work. I have done it in a hurry. FERDINAND WILLIAM OTTO.

Suddenly the Countess laughed, choking hysterical laughter that alarmed Minna; horrible laughter, which left her paler than ever, and gasping.

The old castle of the Loscheks looked grim and inhospitable when she reached it that, night. Built during the years when the unbeliever overran southern Europe, it stood in a commanding position over a valley, and a steep, walled road led up to it. The narrow windows of its turrets were built, in defiance of the Moslem hordes, in the shape of the cross. Its walls had been hospitable enough, however, when the crusaders had thronged by to redeem the Holy Sepulcher from the grasp of the infidel. Here, in its stone hall, they had slept in weary rows on the floor. From its battlements they had stared south and east along the road their feet must follow.

But now, its ancient glory and good repute departed, its garrison gone, its drawbridge and moat things of the past, its very hangings and furnishings mouldering from long neglect, it hung over the valley, a past menace, an empty threat.

To this dreary refuge the Countess had fled. She wanted the silence of its still rooms in which to think. Wretched herself, its wretchedness called her. As the carriage which had brought her from, the railway turned into its woods; and she breathed the pungent odor of pine and balsam, she relaxed for the first time.

Why was she so hopeless? She could escape.

She knew the woods well. None who followed her could know them so well. She would get away, and somewhere, in a new world, make a fresh start. Surely, after all, peace was the greatest thing in the world.

Peace! The word attracted her. There were religious houses where one would be safe enough, refuges high-walled and secure, into which no alien foot ever penetrated. And, as if to answer the thought, she saw at that moment across the valley the lights of Etzel, the tower of the church, with its thirteen bells, the monastery buildings behind it, and set at its feet, like pilgrims come to pray, the low houses of the peasants. For the church at Etzel contained a celebrated shrine, none other than that of Our Lady of the Angels, and here came, from all over the kingdom, long lines of footsore and weary pilgrims, seeking peace and sanctity, and some a miracle.

The carriage drove on; Minna, on the box, crossed herself at sight of the church, and chatted with the driver, a great figure who crowded her to the very edge of the seat.

"I am glad to be here," she said. "I am sick of grandeur. My home is in Etzel." She turned and inspected the man beside her. "You are a newcomer, I think?"

"I have but just come to Etzel."

"Then you cannot tell me about my people." She was disappointed.

"And you," inquired the driver,—"you will stay for a visit?"

"A week only. But better than nothing."

"After that, you return to the city?"

"Yes. Madame the Countess—you would know, if you were Etzel-born—Madame the Countess is lady-in-waiting to Her Royal Highness, the Archduchess Annunciata."

"So!" said the driver. But he was not curious, and the broken road demanded his attention. He was but newly come, so very newly that he did not know his way, and once made a wrong turning.

The Countess relaxed. She had not been followed. None but themselves had left the train. She was sure of that. And looking back, she satisfied herself that no stealthy foot-traveler dogged their slow progress. She breathed quietly, for the first time.

She slept that night. She had wired ahead of her coming, and the old caretaker and his wife had opened a few rooms, her boudoir and dressing-room, and a breakfast-room on the first floor. They had swept the hall too, and built a fire there, but it had been built for a great household, and its emptiness chilled her.

At four o'clock in the morning she roused at the ringing of a bell, telling that masses had already begun at the church. For with the approach of Lent pilgrimages had greatly increased in numbers. But she slept again, to waken to full sunlight, greatly refreshed.

When she had breakfasted and dressed, she went out on a balcony, and looked down at the valley. It was late. Already the peasants of Etzel had gone out to their fields. Children played along its single streets. A few women on the steps of the church made rosaries of beads which they strung with deft fingers. A band of pilgrims struggled up the valley, the men carrying their coats, for the sun was warm, and the women holding their skirts from the dust.

As they neared the church, however, coats were donned. The procession took on order and dignity. The sight was a familiar one to the Countess. Her eyes dropped to the old wall below, where in the sunshine the caretaker was beating a rug. Close to him, in intimate and cautious conversation, was the driver of the night before. Glancing up, they saw her and at once separated.

Gone was peace, then. The Countess knew knew certainly. "Our eyes see everywhere." Eyes, indeed, eyes that even now the caretaker raised furtively from his rug.

Nevertheless, the Countess was minded to experiment, to be certain. For none is so suspicious, she knew, as one who fears suspicion. None so guilty as the guilty. During the forenoon she walked through the woods, going briskly, with vigorous, mountainbred feet. No crackle of underbrush disturbed her. Swift turnings revealed no lurking figures skulking behind the trunks of trees. But where an ancient stone bridge crossed a mountain stream, she came on the huge driver of the night before reflectively fishing.

He saluted her gravely, and the Countess paused and looked at him. "You have caught no fish, my friend?" she said.

"No, madame. But one plays about my hook."

She turned back. Eyes everywhere, and arms, great hairy arms. And feet that, for all their size, must step lightly!

Restlessness followed her. She was a virtual Prisoner, free only in name. And the vigilance of the Terrorists obsessed her. She found a day gone, and no plan made. She had come here to think, and consecutive thought was impossible. She went to vespers at the church, and sat huddled in a corner. She suspected every eye that turned on her in frank curiosity. When, during the "Salve Regina," the fathers, followed by their pupils, went slowly down the aisle, in reverent procession between rows of Pilgrims, she saw in their habits only a grim reminder of the black disguises of the Terrorists.

On the second day she made a desperate resolve, and characteristically put it into execution at once. She sent for the caretaker. When he came, uneasy, for the Loscheks were justly feared in the country side, and even the thing of which he knew gave him small courage, she lost no time in evasion.

"Go," she said; "and bring here your accomplice—"

"My accomplice, madame! I do not—"

"You heard me," she said.

He turned, half sullen, half terrified, and paused. "Which do you refer to, madame?"

She had seen only the one. Then there were others. Who could tell how many others?

"The one who drove here."

So he went, leaving her to desperate reflection. When he returned, it was to usher in the heavy figure of the spy.

"Which of you is in authority?" she demanded.

"I, madame." It was the spy who spoke.

She dismissed the caretaker with a gesture.

"Have you any discretion over me? Or must you refer matters to those who sent you?"

"I must refer to them."

"How long will it take to send a message and receive a reply?"

He considered. "Until to-morrow night, madame."

Another day gone, then, and nothing determined!

"Now, listen," she said, "and listen carefully. I have come here to decide a certain question. Whether you know what that question is or not, does not matter. But before I decide it I must take a certain journey. I wish to make that journey. It is into Karnia."

She watched him. "It is impossible. My instructions—"

"I am not asking your permission. I wish to send a letter to the Committee. They, and they alone, will determine this thing. Will you send the letter?"

When he hesitated, perplexed, she got up and moved to her writing-table.

"I shall write the letter," she said haughtily. "See that it is sent. When I report at the end of the time that I have sent such a letter, you can judge better than I the result if it has not been received."

He was still dubious, but she wrote the letter and gave it to him, her face proud and scornful. But she was not easy, for all that, and she watched from her balcony to see if any messenger left the castle and descended the mountain road. She was rewarded, an hour later, by seeing a figure leave the old gateway and start afoot toward the village, a pale-faced man with colorless hair. A part of the hidden guard that surrounded her, she knew, and somehow familiar. But, although she racked her brains, she could not remember where she had seen him.

For the next twenty-four hours she waited. Life became one long endurance. She hated the forest, since she might not visit it alone. She hated the castle, because it was her prison. She stood for hours that first day on her balcony, surveying with scornful eyes the procession of the devout, weary women, perspiring men, lines of children going to something they did not comprehend, and carrying clenched in small, warm hands drooping bunches of early mountain flowers.

And always, calling her to something she scorned, rang the bells for mass or for vespers. The very tower below beckoned her to peace—her, for whom there would never again be peace. She cursed the bell savagely, put her fingers in her ears, to be wakened at dawn the next morning to its insistent call.

There was no more sleep for her. She lay there in her bare room and gave herself to bitter reflection. Here, in this very castle, she had met Karl. That was eleven years before. Prince Hubert was living. During a period of peace between the two countries a truce had been arranged, treaties signed, with every prospect of permanence. During that time Karl and Hubert, glad of peace, had come here for the hunting. She remembered the stir about their coming, her father's hurried efforts to get things in order, the cleaning and refurbishing, the peasants called in to serve the royal guests, and stripped of their quaint costumes to be put into ill-fitting livery.

They had bought her a new frock for evening wear, the father who was now dead, and the old aunt who had raised her—an ugly black satin, too mature for her. She had put it on in that very room, and wept in very despair.

Then came the arrival, her father on the doorstep, she and her aunt behind him, and in the hall, lines of uneasy and shuffling peasants. How awkward and ill at ease they must have seemed! Then came the carriage, Hubert alighting first, then Karl. Karl had seen her instantly, over her father's bent back.

Lying there, seeing things with the clear vision of the dawn, she wondered whether, had she met Karl later, in her sophisticated maturity, she would have fallen in love with him. There was no way to know. He had dawned on her then, almost the first man of rank she had ever seen. She saw him, not only with fresh eyes, but through the halo of his position. He was the Crown Prince of Karnia then, more dashing than Hubert, who was already married and had always been a serious youth, handsomer, a blond in a country of few blond men. His joyous smile had not taken on the mocking twist it acquired later. His blue eyes were gay and joyous.

When she had bowed and would have kissed his hand, it had been Karl who kissed hers, and straightened to smile down at her.

"This is a very happy day, Countess," he had said.

Then the old aunt had hustled forward, and the peasants had bowed nervously, and bustle and noise had filled the old place.

For four days the royal hunters had stayed. On the third day Karl had pleaded fatigue, and they had walked through the pine woods. On that very devil's bridge he had kissed her. They had had serious talks, too. Karl was ambitious, even then. The two countries were at peace, but for how long? Contrary to opinion, he said, it was not rulers who led their people into war. It was the people who forced those wars. He spoke of long antagonisms, old jealousies, trade relations.

She had listened, flattered, had been an intelligent audience. Even now, she felt that it was her intelligence as much as her beauty that had ensnared Karl. For ensnared he had been. She had dreamed wild dreams that night after he kissed her, dreams of being his wife. She was not too young to know passion in a man's eyes, and Karl's had burned with it.

Then, the next day, while the hunters were away, her aunt had come to her, ugly, dowdy, and alarmed. "Little fool!" she had said. "They play, these princes. But they are evil with women, and dangerous. I have seen your eyes on him, sick with love. And Karl will amuse himself—it is the blood—and go away, laughing."

She had been working with the satin dress, trying to make it lovely for him. Over it her eyes had met her aunt's, small and twitching with anxiety. "But suppose he cares for me?" she had asked. "Sometimes I think—Why should you say he is evil?"

"Bah!"

She had grown angry then and, flinging the dress on the floor, had risen haughtily. "I think he will marry me," she had announced, to be met with blank surprise, followed by cackling old laughter.

Karl had gone away, kissing her passionately, before he left her, in the dark hall. And many things had followed. A cousin, married into Karnia became lady-in-waiting to the old Queen. Olga Loschek had visited her. No accident all this, but a carefully thought-out plan of Karl's. She had met Karl again. She was no longer the ill-dressed, awkward girl of the mountains, and his passion grew, rather than died.

He had made further love to her then, urged her to go away with him on a journey to the eastern end of the kingdom, would, indeed, have compromised her hopelessly. But, young as she was, she had had courage and strength; perhaps shrewdness too. Few women could have resisted him. He was gentleness itself with her, kindly, considerate, passionate. But she had kept her head.

And because she had kept her head, she had kept him. Through his many lapses, his occasional mad adventures, he had always come back to her. Having never possessed her, he had always wanted her. But not enough, she said drearily to herself, to pay the price of marriage.

She was fair enough to him. Nothing but a morganatic marriage would be possible, and this would deprive his children of the throne. But less than marriage she would not have.

The old Queen died. Her cousin retired to the country, and raised pheasants for gayety. Olga Loschek's visits to Karnia ceased. In time a place was made for her at the Court of Livonia and a brilliant marriage for her was predicted. But she did not marry. Now and then she retired to the castle near the border, and Karl visited her there. And, at last, after years, the inevitable happened.

She was deeply in love, and the years were passing. The burden of resistance had always been on her, and marriage was out of the question. She was alone now. Her father had died, and the old aunt was in seclusion in a nunnery, where she pottered around a garden and knitted endless garments for the poor.

For a time Olga had been very happy. Karl's motor crossed the mountains, and he came on foot through the woods. No breath of scandal touched her. And, outwardly, Karl did not change. He was still her ardent lover. But the times when they could meet were few.

And the Court of Livonia heard rumors—a gamekeeper's daughter, an actress in his own capital, these were but two of the many. Olga Loschek was clever. She never reproached him or brought him to task. She had felt that, whatever his lapses, the years had made her necessary to him.

The war that followed the truce had seen her Karl's spy in Livonia. She had undertaken it that the burden of gratitude should be on him—a false step, for men chafe under the necessity for gratitude.

Then had come another peace, and his visit to the summer palace. There he had seen Hedwig, grown since his last visit to lovely girlhood, and having what Olga Loschek could never again possess, youth.

And now he would marry her, and Olga Loschek, his tool and spy, was in danger of her life.

That day, toward evening, the huge man presented himself. He brought no letter, but an oral message. "Permission is given, madame," he said. "I myself shall accompany you."



CHAPTER XXIII. NIKKY MAKES A PROMISE

The Chancellor lived alone, in his little house near the Palace, a house that looked strangely like him, overhanging eyebrows and all, with windows that were like his eyes, clear and concealing many secrets. A grim, gray little old house, which concealed behind it a walled garden full of unexpected charm. And that, too, was like the Chancellor.

In his study on the ground floor, overlooking the garden, the Chancellor spent his leisure hours. Here, on the broad, desk-like arm of his chair, where so many state documents had lain for signature, most of his meals were served. Here, free from the ghosts that haunted the upper rooms, he dreamed his dream of a greater kingdom.

Mathilde kept his house for him, mended and pressed his uniforms, washed and starched his linen, quarreled with the orderly who attended him, and drove him to bed at night.

"It is midnight," she would say firmly—or one o'clock, or even later, for the Chancellor was old, and needed little sleep. "Give me the book." Because, if she did not take it, he would carry it off to bed, and reading in bed is bad for the eyes.

"Just a moment, Mathilde," he would say, and finish a paragraph. Sometimes he went on reading, and forgot about her, to look up, a half-hour later, perhaps, and find her still standing there, immobile, firm.

Then he would sigh, and close the book.

At his elbow every evening Mathilde placed a glass of milk. If he had forgotten it, now he sipped it slowly, and the two talked—of homely things, mostly, the garden, or moths in the closed rooms which had lost, one by one, their beloved occupants, or of a loose tile on the roof. But now and then their conversation was more serious.

Mathilde, haunting the market with its gayly striped booths, its rabbits hung in pairs by the ears, its strings of dried vegetables, its lace bazaars Mathilde was in touch with the people. It was Mathilde, and not one of his agents, who had brought word of the approaching revolt of the coppersmiths' guild, and enabled him to check it almost before it began. A stoic, this Mathilde, with her tall, spare figure and glowing eyes, stoic and patriot. Once every month she burned four candles before the shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in the cathedral, because of four sons she had given to her country.

On the evening of the day Hedwig had made her futile appeal to the King, the Chancellor sat alone. His dinner, almost untasted, lay at his elbow. It was nine o'clock. At something after seven he had paid his evening visit to the King, and had found him uneasy and restless.

"Sit down;" the King had said. "I need steadying, old friend."

"Steadying, sire?"

"I have had a visit from Hedwig. Rather a stormy one, poor child." He turned and fixed on his Chancellor his faded eyes. "In this course that you have laid out, and that I am following, as I always have," irony this, but some truth, too,—"have you no misgivings? You still think it is the best thing?"

"It is the only thing."

"But all this haste," put in the King querulously.

"Is that so necessary? Hedwig begs for time. She hardly knows the man."

"Time! But I thought—" He hesitated. How say to a dying man that time was the one thing he did not have?

"Another thing. She was incoherent, but I gathered that there was some one else. The whole interview was cyclonic. It seems, however, that this young protege of yours, Larisch, has been making love to her over Otto's head."

Mettlich's face hardened, a gradual process, as the news penetrated in all its significance.

"I should judge," the King went on relentlessly, "that this vaunted affection of his for the boy is largely assumed, a cover for other matters. But," he added, with a flicker of humor, "my granddaughter assures me that it is she who has made the advances. I believe she asked him to elope with her, and he refused!"

"A boy-and-girl affair, sire. He is loyal. And in all of this, you and I are reckoning without Karl. The Princess hardly knows him, and naturally she is terrified. But his approaching visit will make many changes. He is a fine figure of a man, and women—"

"Exactly;" said the King dryly. What the Chancellor meant was that women always had loved Karl, and the King understood.

"His wild days are over," bluntly observed the Chancellor. "He is forty, sire."

"Aye," said the King. "And at forty, a bad man changes his nature, and purifies himself in marriage! Nonsense, Karl will be as he has always been. But we have gone into this before. Only, I am sorry for Hedwig. Hilda would have stood it better. She is like her father. However"—his voice hardened "the thing is arranged, and we must carry out our contract. Get rid of this young Larisch."

The Chancellor sat reflecting, his chin dropped forward on his breast. "Otto will miss him."

"Well, out with it. I may not dismiss him. What, then?"

"It is always easy to send men away. But it is sometimes better to retain them, and force them to your will. We have here an arrangement that is satisfactory. Larisch is keen, young, and loyal. Hedwig has thrown herself at him. For that, sire, she is responsible, not he."

"Then get rid of her," growled the King.

The Chancellor rose. "If the situation is left to me, sire," he said, "I will promise two things. That Otto will keep his friend, and that the Princess Hedwig will bow to your wishes without further argument."

"Do it, and God help you!" said the King, again with the flicker of amusement.

The Chancellor had gone home, walking heavily along the darkening streets. Once again he had conquered. The reins remained in his gnarled old hands. And he was about to put the honor of the country into the keeping of the son of Maria Menrad, whom he had once loved.

So now he sat in his study, and waited. A great meerschaum pipe, a stag's head with branching antlers and colored dark with years of use, lay on his tray; and on his knee, but no longer distinguishable in the dusk, lay an old daguerreotype of Maria Menrad.

When he heard Nikky's quick step as he came along the tiled passage, he slipped the case into the pocket of his shabby house-coat, and picked up the pipe.

Nikky saluted, and made his way across the room in the twilight, with the ease of familiarity. "I am late, sir," he apologized. "We found our man and he is safely jailed. He made no resistance."

"Sit down," said the Chancellor. And, touching a bell, he asked Mathilde for coffee. "So we have him," he reflected. "The next thing is to discover if he knows who his assailants were. That, and the person for whom he acted—However, I sent for you for another reason. What is this about the Princess Hedwig?"

"The Princess Hedwig!"

"What folly, boy! A young girl who cannot know her own mind! And for such a bit of romantic trifling you would ruin yourself. It is ruin. You know that."

"I am sorry," Nikky said simply. "As far as my career goes, it does not matter. But I am thinking of her."

"A trifle late."

"But," Nikky spoke up valiantly, "it is not romantic folly, in the way you mean, sir. As long as I live, I shall—It is hopeless, of course, sir."

"Madness," commented the Chancellor. "Sheer spring madness. You would carry her off, I dare say, and hide yourselves at the end of a rainbow! Folly!"

Nikky remained silent, a little sullen.

"The Princess went to the King with her story this evening." The boy started. "A cruel proceeding, but the young are always cruel. The expected result has followed: the King wishes you sent away."

"I am at his command, sir."

The Chancellor filled his pipe from a bowl near by, working deliberately. Nikky sat still, rather rigid.

"May I ask," he said at last, "that you say to the King that the responsibility is mine? No possible blame can attach to the Princess Hedwig. I love her, and—I am not clever. I show what I feel."

He was showing it then, both hurt and terror, not for himself, but for her. His voice shook in spite of his efforts to be every inch a soldier.

"The immediate result," said the Chancellor cruelly, "will doubtless be a putting forward of the date for her marriage." Nikky's hands clenched. "A further result would be your dismissal from the army. One does not do such things as you have done, lightly."

"Lightly!" said Nikky Larisch. "God!"

"But," continued the Chancellor, "I have a better way. I have faith, for one thing, in your blood. The son of Maria Menrad must be—his mother's son. And the Crown Prince is attached to you. Not for your sake, but for his, I am inclined to be lenient. What I shall demand for that leniency is that no word of love again pass between you and the Princess Hedwig."

"It would be easier to go away."

"Aye, of course. But 'easier' is not your word nor mine." But Nikky's misery touched him. He rose and placed a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder. "It is not as simple as that. I know, boy. But you are young, and these things grow less with time. You need not see her. She will be forbidden to visit Otto or to go to the riding-school. You see, I know about the riding-school! And, in a short time now, the marriage will solve many difficulties."

Nikky closed his eyes. It was getting to be a habit, just as some people crack their knuckles.

"We need our friends about us," the Chancellor continued. "The Carnival is coming,—always a dangerous time for us. The King grows weaker day by day. A crisis is impending for all of us, and we need you."

Nikky rose, steady enough now, but white to the lips.

"I give my word, sir," he said. "I shall say no word of—of how I feel to Hedwig. Not again. She knows and I think," he added proudly, "that she knows I shall not change. That I shall always—"

"Exactly!" said the Chancellor. It was the very, pitch of the King's dry old voice. "Of course she knows, being a woman. And now, good-night."

But long after Nikky had gone he sat in the darkness. He felt old and tired and a hypocrite. The boy would not forget, as he himself had not forgotten. His hand, thrust into his pocket, rested on the faded daguerreotype there.

Peter Niburg was shot at dawn the next morning. He went, a coward, to his death, held between two guards and crying piteously. But he died a brave man. Not once in the long hours of his interrogation had he betrayed the name of the Countess Loschek.



CHAPTER XXIV. THE BIRTHDAY

The Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto of Livonia was having a birthday. Now, a birthday for a Crown Prince of Livonia is not a matter of a cake with candles on it; and having his ears pulled, once for each year and an extra one to grow on. Nor of a holiday from lessons, and a picnic in spring woods. Nor of a party, with children frolicking and scratching the best furniture.

In the first place, he was wakened at dawn and taken to early service in the chapel, a solemn function, with the Court assembled and slightly sleepy. The Crown Prince, who was trying to look his additional dignity of years, sat and stood as erect as possible, and yawned only once.

After breakfast he was visited by the chaplain who had his religious instruction in hand, and interrogated. He did not make more than about sixty per cent in this, however, and the chaplain departed looking slightly discouraged.

Lessons followed, and in each case the tutor reminded him that, having now reached his tenth birthday, he should be doing better than in the past. Especially the French tutor, who had just heard a rumor of Hedwig's marriage.

At eleven o'clock came word that the King was too ill to have him to luncheon, but that he would see him for a few moments that afternoon. Prince Ferdinand William Otto, who was diagramming the sentence, "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in America," and doing it wrong, looked up in dismay.

"I'd like to know what's the use of having a birthday," he declared rebelliously.

The substitution of luncheon with the Archduchess Annunciata hardly thrilled him. Unluckily he made an observation to that effect, and got five off in Miss Braithwaite's little book.

The King did not approve of birthday gifts. The expensive toys which the Court would have offered the child were out of key with the simplicity of his rearing. As a matter of fact, the Crown Prince had never heard of a birthday gift, and had, indeed, small experience of gifts of any kind, except as he made them himself. For that he had a great fondness. His small pocket allowance generally dissipated itself in this way.

So there were no gifts. None, that is, until the riding-hour came, and Nikky, subverter of all discipline. He had brought a fig lady, wrapped in paper.

"It's quite fresh," he said, as they walked together across the Place. "I'll give it to you when we get to the riding-school. I saw the woman myself take it out of her basket. So it has no germs on it."

But, although he spoke bravely, Nikky was the least bit nervous. First of all he was teaching the boy deception. "But why don't they treat him like a human being?" he demanded of himself. Naturally there was no answer. Maria Menrad's son had a number of birthdays in his mind, real birthdays with much indulgence connected with them.

Second, suppose it really had a germ or two on it? Anxiously, having unwrapped it, he examined it in the sunlight of a window of the ring. Certainly, thus closely inspected, it looked odd. There were small granules over it.

The Crown Prince waited patiently. "Miss Braithwaite says that if you look at them under a glass, there are bugs on them," he observed, with interest.

"Perhaps, after all, you'd better not have it."

"They are very small bugs," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto anxiously. "I don't object to them at all."

So, after all, Nikky uneasily presented his gift; and nothing untoward happened. He was rewarded, however, by such a glow of pleasure and gratitude from the boy that his scruples faded.

No Hedwig again, to distract Nikky's mind. The lesson went on; trot, canter, low jumps. And then what Nikky called "stunts," an American word which delighted the Crown Prince.

But, Nikky, like the big child he was himself, had kept his real news to the last.

Already, he was offering himself on the altar of the child's safety. Behind his smiles lay something of the glow of the martyr. His eyes were sunken, his lips drawn. He had not slept at all, nor eaten. But to the boy he meant to show no failing, to be the prince of playmates, the brother of joy. Perhaps in this way, he felt, lay his justification.

So now, with the Crown Prince facing toward the Palace again, toward luncheon with his aunt and a meeting with the delegation, Nikky, like an epicure of sensations, said: "By the way, Otto, I found that dog you saw yesterday. What was his name? Toto?"

"Where did you find him? Yes, Toto!"

"I looked him up," said Nikky modestly. "You see, it's like this: He's a pretty nice dog. There aren't many dogs like him. And I thought—well, nobody can say I can't have a dog."

"You've got him? You, yourself?"

"I, myself. I dare say he has fleas, and they will get in the carpet, but—I tell you what I thought: He will be really your dog, do you see? I'll take care of him, and keep him for you, and bring him out to walk where you can see him. Then, when they say you may have a dog, you've got one, already. All I have to do is to bring him to you."

Wise Nikky, of the understanding boy's heart. He had brought into the little Prince's life its first real interest, something vital, living. And something of the soreness and hurt of the last few hours died in Nikky before Prince Ferdinand William Otto's smile.

"Oh, Nikky!" was all the child said at first, and grew silent for very happiness. Then: "We can talk about him. You can tell me all the things he does, and I can send him bones, can't I? Unless you don't care to carry them."

This, in passing, explains the reason why, to the eyes of astonished servants, from that day forth the Crown Prince of Livonia apparently devoured his chop, bone and all. And why Nikky resembled, at times, a well-setup, trig, and soldierly appearing charnel-house. "If I am ever arrested," he once demurred, "and searched, Highness, I shall be consigned to a madhouse."

Luncheon was extremely unsuccessful. His Cousin Hedwig looked as though she had been crying, and Hilda, eating her soup too fast, was sent from the table. The Crown Prince, trying to make conversation, chose Nikky as his best subject, and met an icy silence. Also, attempting to put the bone from a chicken leg in his pocket, he was discovered.

"What in the world!" exclaimed the Archduchess. "What do you want of a chicken bone?"

"I just wanted it, Tante."

"It is greasy. Look at your fingers!"

"Mother," Hedwig said quietly, "it is his birthday."

"I do not need you to remind me of that. Have I not been up since the middle of the night, for that reason?"

But she said no more, and was a trifle more agreeable during the remainder of the meal. She was just a bit uneasy before Hedwig those days. She did not like the look in her eyes.

That afternoon, attired in his uniform of the Guards, the Crown Prince received the delegation of citizens in the great audience, chamber of the Palace, a solitary little figure, standing on the red carpet before the dais at the end. Behind him, stately with velvet hangings, was the tall gilt chair which some day would be his. Afternoon sunlight, coming through the long windows along the side, shone on the prisms of the heavy chandeliers, lighted up the paintings of dead and gone kings of his line, gleamed in great mirrors and on the polished floor.

On each side of his small figure the Council grouped itself, fat Friese, rat-faced Marschall, Bayerl, with his soft voice and white cheeks lighted by hot eyes, and the others. They stood very stiff, in their white gloves. Behind them were grouped the gentlemen of the Court, in full dress and decorated with orders. At the door stood the Lord Chamberlain, very gorgeous in scarlet and gold.

The Chancellor stood near the boy, resplendent in his dress uniform, a blue ribbon across his shirt front, over which Mathilde had taken hours. He was the Mettlich of the public eye now, hard of features, impassive, inflexible.

In ordinary times less state would have been observed, a smaller room, Mettlich only, or but one or two others, an informal ceremony. But the Chancellor shrewdly intended to do the delegation all honor, the Palace to give its best, that the city, in need, might do likewise.

And he had staged the affair well. The Crown Prince, standing alone, so small, so appealing, against his magnificent background, was a picture to touch the hardest. Not for nothing had Mettlich studied the people, read their essential simplicity, their answer to any appeal to the heart. These men were men of family. Surely no father of a son could see that lonely child and not offer him loyalty.

With the same wisdom, he had given the boy small instruction, and no speech of thanks. "Let him say what comes into his head," Mettlich had reasoned. "It will at least be spontaneous and boyish."

The Crown Prince was somewhat nervous. He blinked rapidly as the delegation entered and proceeded up the room. However, happening at that moment to remember Nikky with the brass inkwell, he forgot himself in amusement. He took a good look at the gold casket, as it approached, reverently borne, and rather liked its appearance. It would have been, he reflected, extremely convenient to keep things in, pencils and erasers, on his desk. But, of course, he would not have it to keep. Quite a number of things passed into his possession and out again with the same lightning-like rapidity.

The first formalities over, and the Crown Prince having shaken hands nine times, the spokesman stepped forward. He had brought a long, written speech, which had already been given to the newspapers. But after a moment's hesitation he folded it up.

"Your Royal Highness," he said, looking down, "I have here a long speech, but all that it contains I can say briefly. It is your birthday, Highness. We come, representing many others, to present to you our congratulations, and—the love of your people. It is our hope"—He paused. Emotion and excitement were getting the better of him—"our hope, Highness, that you will have many happy years. To further that hope, we are here to-day to say that we, representing all classes, are your most loyal subjects. We have fought for His Majesty the King, and if necessary we will fight for you." He glanced beyond the child at the Council, and his tone was strong and impassioned: "But to-day we are here, not to speak of war, but to present to you our congratulations, our devotion, and our loyalty."

Also a casket. He had forgotten that. He stepped back, was nudged, and recollected.

"Also a gift," he said, and ruined a fine speech among smiles. But the presentation took place in due order, and Otto cleared his throat.

"Thank you all very much," he said. "It is a very beautiful gift. I admire it very much. I should like to keep it on my desk, but I suppose it is too valuable. Thank you very much."

The spokesman hoped that it might be arranged that he keep it on his desk, an ever-present reminder of the love of his city. To this the Chancellor observed that it would be arranged, and the affair was over. To obviate the difficulty of having the delegation back down the long room, it was the Crown Prince who departed first, with the Chancellor.

Altogether, it was comfortably over, and the Chancellor reflected grimly that the boy had done well. He had made friends of the delegation at a time when he needed friends. As they walked along the long corridors of the Palace together, the Chancellor was visualizing another scene, which must come soon, pray God with as good result: the time when, the old King dead and the solemn bell of the cathedral tolling, this boy would step out on to the balcony overlooking the Place, and show himself to the great throng below the windows.

To offset violence and anarchy itself, only that one small figure on the balcony!

Late in the afternoon the King sent for Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He had not left his bed since the day he had placed the matter of Hedwig's marriage before the Council, and now he knew he would never leave it. There were times between sleeping and waking when he fancied he had already gone, and that only his weary body on the bed remained. At such times he saw Hubert, only, strangely enough, not as a man grown, but as a small boy again; and his Queen, but as she had looked many years before, when he married her, and when at last, after months of married wooing, she had crept willing into his arms.

So, awakening from a doze, he saw the boy there, and called him Hubert. Prince Ferdinand William Otto, feeling rather worried, did the only thing he could think of. He thrust his warm hand into his grandfather's groping one, and the touch of his soft flesh roused the King.

The Sister left them together, and in her small room dropped on her knees before the holy image. There, until he left, she prayed for the King's soul, for the safety and heavenly guidance of the boy. The wind stirred her black habit and touched gently her white coif. She prayed, her pale lips moving silently.

In the King's bedchamber Prince Ferdinand William Otto sat on a high chair, and talked. He was extremely relieved that his exile was over, but he viewed his grandfather, with alarm. His aunt had certainly intimated that his running away had made the King worse. And he looked very ill.

"I'm awfully sorry, grandfather," he said.

"For what?"

"That I went away the other day, sir."

"It was, after all, a natural thing to do."

The Crown Prince could hardly believe his ears.

"If it could only be arranged safely—a little freedom—" The King lay still with closed eyes.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto felt uneasy. "But I am very comfortable, and—and happy," he hastened to say. "You are, please, not to worry about me, sir. And about the paper I threw at Monsieur Puaux the other day, I am sorry about that too. I don't know exactly why I did it."

The King still held his hand, but he said nothing. There were many things he wanted to say. He had gone crooked where this boy must go straight. He had erred, and the boy must avoid his errors. He had cherished enmities, and in his age they cherished him. And now— "May I ask you a question, sir?"

"What is it?"

"Will you tell me about Abraham Lincoln?"

"Why?" The King was awake enough now. He fixed the Crown Prince with keen eyes.

"Well, Miss Braithwaite does not care for him. She says he was not a great man, not as great as Mr. Gladstone, anyhow. But Bobby—that's the boy I met; I told you about him—he says he was the greatest man who ever lived."

"And who," asked the King, "do you regard as the greatest man?"

Prince Ferdinand William Otto fidgeted, but he answered bravely, "You, sir."

"Humph!" The King lay still, smiling slightly. "Well," he observed, "there are, of course, other opinions as to that. However—Abraham Lincoln was a very great man. A dreamer, a visionary, but a great man. You might ask Miss Braithwaite to teach you his 'Gettysburg Address.' It is rather a model as to speech-making, although it contains doctrines that—well, you'd better learn it."

He smiled again, to himself. It touched his ironic sense of humor that he, who had devoted his life to maintaining that all men are not free and equal, when on that very day that same doctrine of liberty was undermining his throne—that he should be discussing it with the small heir to that throne.

"Yes, sir," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He hoped it was not very long.

"Otto," said the King suddenly, "do you ever look at your father's picture?"

"Not always."

"You might—look at it now and then. I'd like you to do it."

"Yes, sir."



CHAPTER XXV. THE GATE OF THE MOON

A curious friendship had sprung up between old Adelbert and Bobby Thorpe. In off hours, after school, the boy hung about the ticket-taker's booth, swept now to a wonderful cleanliness and adorned within with pictures cut from the illustrated papers. The small charcoal fire was Bobby's particular care. He fed and watched it, and having heard of the baleful effects of charcoal fumes, insisted on more fresh air than old Adelbert had ever breathed before.

"You see," Bobby would say earnestly, as he brushed away at the floor beneath the burner, "you don't know that you are being asphyxiated. You just feel drowsy, and then, poof!—you're dead."

Adelbert, dozing between tickets, was liable to be roused by a vigorous shaking, to a pair of anxious eyes gazing at him, and to a draft of chill spring air from the open door.

"I but dozed," he would explain, without anger. "All my life have I breathed the fumes and nothing untoward has happened."

Outwardly he was peaceful. The daughter now received his pension in full, and wrote comforting letters. But his resentment and bitterness at the loss of his position at the Opera continued, even grew.

For while he had now even a greater wage, and could eat three meals, besides second breakfast and afternoon coffee, down deep in his heart old Adelbert felt that he had lost caste. The Opera—that was a setting! Great staircases of marble, velvet hangings, the hush before the overture, and over all the magic and dignity of music. And before his stall had passed and repassed the world—royalties, the aristocracy, the army. Hoi polloi had used another entrance by which to climb to the upper galleries. He had been, then, of the elect. Aristocrats who had forgotten their own opera-glasses had requested him to give them of his best, had through long years learned to know him there, and had nodded to him as they swept by. The flash of jewels on beautiful necks, the glittering of decorations on uniformed chests, had been his life.

And now, to what had he fallen! To selling tickets for an American catch-penny scheme, patronized by butchers, by housemaids, by the common people a noisy, uproarious crowd, that nevertheless counted their change with suspicious eyes, and brought lunches in paper boxes, which they scattered about.

"Riff-raff!" he said to himself scornfully.

There was, however, a consolation. He had ordered a new uniform. Not for twenty years had he ventured the extravagance, and even now his cautious soul quailed at the price. For the last half-dozen years he had stumped through the streets, painfully aware of shabbiness, of a shiny back, of patches, when, on the anniversary of the great battle to which he had sacrificed a leg, the veterans marched between lines of cheering people.

Now, on this approaching anniversary, he could go peacefully, nay, even proudly. The uniform was of the best cloth, and on its second fitting showed already its marvel of tailoring. The news of it had gone around the neighborhood. The tailor reported visits from those who would feel of the cloth, and figure its expensiveness. In the evening—for he worked only until seven—he had his other preparations: polishing his sword, cleaning his accouterments.

On an evening a week before the parade would occur, he got out his boots. He bought always large boots with straight soles, the right not much different from the left in shape. Thus he managed thriftily to wear, on his one leg, first one of the pair, then the other. But they were both worn now, and because of the cost of the new uniform, he could not buy others.

Armed with the better of the two he visited the cobbler's shop, and there met with bitter news.

"A patch here, and a new heel, comrade," he said. "With that and a polishing, it will do well enough for marching."

The usual group was in the shop, mostly young men, a scattering of gray heads. The advocates of strange doctrines, most of them. Old Adelbert disapproved of them, regarded them with a sort of contempt.

Now he felt that they smiled behind his back. It was his clothing, he felt. He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. He no longer felt ashamed before them. Already, although the tailor still pressed its seams and marked upon it with chalk, he was clad in the dignity of the new uniform.

He turned and nodded to them. "A fine evening," he said. "If this weather holds, we will have—a good day for the marching." He squinted a faded eye at the sky outside.

"What marching?"

Old Adelbert turned on the speaker sharply. "Probably you have forgotten," he said scornfully, "but in a week comes an anniversary there are many who will remember. The day of a great battle. Perhaps," he added, "if you do not know of what I speak, there are some here who will tell you."

Unexpectedly the crowd laughed.

Old Adelbert flushed a dusky red and drew himself up. "Since when," he demanded, "does such a speech bring laughter? It was no laughing matter then."

"It is the way of the old to live in the past," a student said. Then, imitating old Adelbert's majestic tone: "We, we live in the future. Eh, comrades?" He turned to the old soldier: "You have not seen the bulletins?"

"Bulletins?"

"There will be no marching, my friend. The uniform now—that is a pity. Perhaps the tailor—" His eyes mocked.

"No marching?"

"An order of the Council. It seems that the city is bored by these ancient-reminders. It is for peace, and would forget wars. And processions are costly. We grow thrifty. Bands and fireworks cost money, and money, my hero, is scarce—very scarce."

Again the group laughed.

After a time he grasped the truth. There was such an order. The cause was given as the King's illness.

"Since when," demanded old Adelbert angrily, "has the sound of his soldiers' marching disturbed the King?"

"The sound of wooden legs annoys him," observed the mocking student, lighting a cigarette. "He would hear only pleasant sounds, such as the noise of tax-money pouring into his vaults. Me—I can think of a pleasanter: the tolling of the cathedral bell, at a certain time, will be music to my ears!"