And their hands clasped closely, and the eyes of both were wet, but even on the brink of death the lips of the younger man were sealed. The +silence of one-and-twenty years remained unbroken. +It was not a foolish reticence that restrained him—but simply that he could not find words to voice the memories that grew more and more sacred with the passing of the years.

And at evening, when the family had gathered about him, the old man lay with his son's hand in his, but his eyes looked beyond and rested on the face of the Boy, who seemed the renewal of hit son's youth, when life was one glad song! And thus he passed to the Great Beyond.

And his son was Sir Paul Verdayne, the last of his race.

That night, the young baronet and the Boy sat alone over their cigars. The Boy spoke at some length of his extensive Austrian visit. The Princess Elodie would make him a good wife, he said. She was of good sturdy stock, healthy, strong—and, well, a little heavy and dull, perhaps, but one couldn't expect everything! At least, her honor would never be called into question. He would always feel sure that his name was safe with her! He was glad he went to Austria. There were political complications that he had not understood before which made the marriage an absolute necessity for the salvation of his country's position among the kingdoms of the world, and he was more resigned to it now. Yes, indeed, he was far more resigned. The princess wasn't by any means impossible—not a half bad sort—and—yes, he was resigned! He said it over and over, but without convincing Sir Paul—or deceiving himself!

As for the elder man, he said but little. He had been wondering throughout that dinner-hour whether he could ever really make Isabella his wife. The Boy thought of Isabella, too, and was anxious to know whether his Father Paul was going to be happy at last. He had been very curious to see the woman who could play so cruel a part toward the man he loved. If he had been Verdayne, he thought, he would never forgive her—never! Still, if Father Paul loved the woman—as he certainly must to have remained single for her sake so long—it put a different face on the matter, and of course it was Verdayne's affair, not his! The Boy had been disappointed in Isabella's appearance and attractions—she was not at all the woman he had imagined his Father Paul would love—but of course she was older now, and age changes some women, and, and—well, he only hoped that his friend would be happy—happy in his own way, whatever that might be.

At last, he summoned Vasili to him and called for his own particular yellow wine—the Imperial Tokayi—and the old man filled the glasses. It was too much for Verdayne—and all thoughts of Isabella were consigned to eternal oblivion as he remembered the time when he had sipped that wine with his Queen in the little hotel on the Buergenstock.

She would have no cause for jealousy—his darling!



CHAPTER XIX

It was November when Sir Charles died, and Lady Henrietta betook herself to her sister's for consolation, while Sir Paul and the Boy, with a common impulse, departed for India.

They spent Christmas in Egypt, the winter months in the desert, and at last spring came, with its remembrance of duties to be done. And to the elder man England made its insistent call, as it always did in March. For was it not in England, and in March, the tidings reached him that unto him a son was born?

He must go back.

So at last, acting upon a pre-arrangement to which the young Prince had not been a party, they made their way back to their own world of men and women.

* * * * *

"Boy," said Sir Paul, one day, "the time has come when many questions you have asked and wondered about are to be answered, as is your due. It was your mother's wish that you should go, at the beginning of May, alone, to Lucerne. There you will find letters awaiting you—from her—from your Uncle Peter—yes, even from myself—telling you the whole secret of your birth, the story of your inheritance."

"Why Lucerne, Father Paul?"

"It was your mother's wish—and mine!"

Then, with a rush of tenderness, the older man threw his arm around the Boy's shoulders. "Boy," he said, "be charitable and lenient and kind—whatever you read!"

"And what are you going to do, Father Paul? I have not quite two weeks of freedom left, and I begrudge every day I am forced to spend away from you. You will go with me to see me crowned—and married?"

"Certainly, Boy! You are to stay in Lucerne only until you are sure you understand all the revelations of these letters, and their full import. It may be a week—it may be a day—it may be but a few hours, but—I can't go with you, and you must not ask me to! It is an experience you must face alone. I will await you in Venice, Paul, and be sure that when you want me, Boy, I will come!"

The Boy's sensitive nature was stirred to the depths by the emotion in Sir Paul's face—emotion that all his life long he had never seen there before. He grasped his hand—

"Father Paul," he began, but Sir Paul shook his head at the unspoken appeal in his face and bade him be patient just a little longer and await his letters, for he could tell him nothing.

And thus they parted; the Boy to seek in Lucerne the unveiling of his destiny, the man to wait in Venice, a place he had shunned for one-and-twenty years, but which was dearer to him than any other city in the world. It was there that he had lived the climax of his love-life, with its unutterable ecstasy—and unutterable pain.

Vasili had preceded his young master to Lucerne with the letters that had been too precious, and of too secret a nature, to be entrusted to the post. Who can define the sensations of the young prince as he held in his hand the whole solution of the mystery that had haunted all his years? He trembled—paled. What was this secret—perhaps this terrible secret—which was to be a secret no longer?

Alone in his apartment, he opened the little packet and read the note from the Regent, which enclosed the others, and then—he could read no further. The few words of information that there stared him in the face drove every other thought from his mind, every other emotion from his heart. His father! Why hadn't he seen? Why hadn't he known? A thousand significant memories rushed over him in the light of the startling revelation. How blind he had been! And he sat for hours, unheeding the flight of time, thinking only the one thought, saying over and over again the one name, the name of his father, his own father, whom he had loved so deeply all his life—

Paul Verdayne!



CHAPTER XX

At last, when he felt that he could control his scattered senses, he turned over the letters in the packet and found his mother's. How his boyish heart thrilled at this message from the dead!—a message that he had waited for, and that had been waiting for him, one-and-twenty years! The letter began:

"Once, my baby, thy father—long before he was thy father—had a presentiment that if he became my lover my life would find a tragic end.

"Once, likewise, I told thy father, before he became my lover, that the price we might have to pay, if we permitted ourselves to love, would be sorrow and death! For, my baby, these are so often the terrible cost of such a love as ours. That he has been my lover—my beloved—heart of my heart—thine own existence is the living proof; and something—an intangible something—tells me that the rest of his prophecy will likewise be fulfilled. We have known the sorrow—aye, as few others have—and even now I feel that we shall also know death!

"It is because of this curious presentiment of mine that I write down for thee, my baby—my baby Paul—this story of thy father and thy mother, and the great love that gave thee to the world. It is but right, before thou comest into thy kingdom, that thou shouldst know—thou and thou alone—the secret of thy birth, that thou mayst carry with thee into the big world thy birthright—the sweetness of a supreme love."

Then briefly, but as completely and vividly as the story could be written, she pictured for him the beautiful idyl she and her lover had lived, here in this very spot, two-and-twenty years ago; told him, in her own quaint words, of the beautiful boy she had found in Lucerne, that glorious May so long ago, and how it had been her caprice to waken him, until the caprice had become her love, and afterwards her life; told him how she had seen the danger, and had warned the boy to leave Lucerne, while there was yet time, but that he had answered that he would chance the hurt, because he wished to live, and he knew that only she could teach him how—only she could prove to him the truth of her own words, that life was love!

She told how weary and unhappy she had been, picturing with no light fingers the misery of her life—married when a mere child to a vicious husband—and all the insults and brutality she was forced to endure; and then, for contrast, told him tenderly how she had been young again for this boy she had found in Lucerne.

There was not one little detail of that idyllic dream of love omitted from the picture she drew for him of these two—and their sublime three weeks of life on the Buergenstock with their final triumphant, but bitter culmination in Venice. She told him of what they had been pleased to call their wedding—the wedding of their souls—nor did she seek to lessen the enormity of their sin.

She touched with the tenderest of fingers upon the first dawn in their hearts of the hope of the coming of a child—a child who would hold their souls together forever—a child who would immortalize their love till it should live on, and on, and on, through countless generations perhaps—till who could say how much the world might be benefited and helped just because they two had loved!

And then she told him—sweetly, as a mother should—of all her dreams for her son—all her hopes and ambitions that were centered around his little life—the life of her son who was to redeem the land—told him how ennobled and exalted she had felt that this strong, manly Englishman was her lover, and how sure she had been that their child would have a noble mind.

"Thou wilt think my thoughts, my baby Paul—thou wilt dream my dreams, and know all my ambitions and longings. Thou canst not be ignoble or base, for thou wert born of a love that makes all other unions mean and low and sordid by comparison."

Then, after telling, as only she could tell it, of the bitterness of that parting in Venice, when, because of the threatening danger, from which there was no escape, she left her lover to save his life, she went on:

"Dost thou know yet, when thou readest this, little Paul, with thy father's eyes—dost thou know, I wonder, the meaning of that great love which to the twain who realize it becomes a sacrament—dost understand?—a sacrament holier even than a prayer. It was even so with thy father and me—dost thou—canst thou understand? If not yet, sometime thou wilt, and thou wilt then forgive thy mother for her sin."

She told of the taunts and persecutions to which she was forced to submit upon her return to her kingdom. The king and his friends had vilely commended her for her "patriotism" in finding an heir to the throne. "Napoleon would have felt honored," her husband had sneered, "if Josephine had adopted thy method of finding him the heir he desired!" But through it all, she said, she had not faltered. She had held the one thought supreme in her heart and remembered that however guilty she might be in the eyes of the world, there was a higher truth in the words of Mrs. Browning, "God trusts me with a child," and had dared to pray.

"To pray for strength and grace and wisdom to give thee birth, my baby, and to make thee all that thou shouldst be—to develop thee into the man I and thy father would have thee become. I was not only giving an heir to the throne of my realm. I was giving a son to the husband of my soul. But the world did not know that. Whatever it might suspect, it could actually know—nothing! The secret was thy father's and mine—his and mine alone—and now it is thine, as it needs must be! Guard it well, my baby, and let it make thy life and thy manhood full of strength and power and sweetness and glory and joy, and remember, as thou readest for the first time this story of thy coming into the world, that thy mother counted it her greatest, proudest glory to be the chosen love of thy father, and the mother of his son."

She had touched as lightly as she could upon the dark hours of her baby's coming, when she was doomed to pass through that Valley of the Shadow far away from the protecting and comforting love of him whose right it was by every law of Nature to have been, then of all times, by her side; but the Boy felt the pathos of it, and his eyes filled with tears. His mother—the mother of his dreams—his glorious queen-mother—to suffer all this for him—for him!

And Father Paul!—his own father! What must this cross have been to him! Surely he would love him all the rest of his life to make up for all that suffering!

Then he thought of the other letters and he read them all, his heart torn between grief and anger—for they told him all the appalling details of the tragedy that had taken his mother from him, and left his father and himself bereaved of all that made life dear and worth the living to man and boy.

One of the letters was from Sir Paul, telling the story over again from the man's point of view, and laying bare at last the great secret the Boy had so often longed to hear. Nothing was kept back. Even every note—every little scrap of his mother's writing—had been sacredly kept and was now enclosed for the eyes of their son to read. The closed door in Father Paul's life was unlocked now, and his son entered and understood, wondering why he had been so blind that he had not seen it all before. The writing on the wall had certainly been plain enough. And he smiled to remember the readiness with which he had believed the plausible story of Isabella Waring!

And that man—the husband of his mother—the king who had taken her dear life from her with a curse upon his lips! Thank God he was not his father! No, in all the world of men, there was no one but Paul Verdayne—no one—to whom he would so willingly have given the title—and to him he had given it in his heart long before.

He sat and read the letters through again, word by word, living in imagination the life his mother had lived, feeling all she had felt. God! the bliss, the agony of it all!

And Paul Zalenska, surrounded by the messages from the past that had given him being, and looking at the ruin of his own life with eyes newly awakened to the immensity of his loss, bowed his face in his hands and wept like a heart-broken child over the falling of his house of cards.

Ah! his mother had understood—she had loved and suffered. She was older than he, too, and had known her world as he could not possibly know it, and yet she had bade him take the gifts of life when they came his way.

And—God help him!—he had not done so!



CHAPTER XXI

The next morning, Paul Zalenska rose early. He had not slept well. He was troubled with conflicting emotions, conflicting memories. The wonder and sorrow of it all had been too much even for his youth and health to endure. His mother had won so much from life, he thought—and he so little! He thought of Opal—indeed, when was she ever absent from his thoughts, waking or sleeping?—and the memory of his loss made him frantic. Opal—his darling! And they might have been just as happy as his mother and father had been, but they had let their happiness slip from them! What fools! Oh, what fools they had been! Not to have risked anything—everything—for their happiness! And where was she now? In Paris, in her husband's arms, no doubt, where he could hold her to him, and caress her and kiss her at his own sweet will! God! It was intolerable, unthinkable! And he—Paul, her lover—lying there alone, who would have died a thousand deaths, if that were possible, to save her from such a fate!

At last he forced the thought of his own loss from him, and thought again of his mother. Ah, but her death had been opportune! How glorious to die when life and love had reached their zenith! in the fullness of joy to take one's farewell of the world!

And in the long watches of that wakeful night, he formed the resolution that he put into effect at the first hint of dawn. He would spend one entire day in solitude. He would traverse step by step the primrose paths of his mother's idyllic dream; he would visit every scene, every nook, she and her lover had immortalized in their memories; he would see it all, feel it all—yes, live it all, and become so impregnated with its witchery that it would shed lustre and glory upon all the bleak years to come. So well had she told her story, so perfect had been its word-painting, he was sure that he would recognize every scene.

He explored the ivy-terrace leading to his mother's room, he walked up and down under the lime trees, and he sat on the bench still in position under the ivy hanging from the balustrade, and looked up wistfully at the windows of the rooms that had been hers. Then he engaged a launch and crossed the lake, and was not satisfied until he had found among the young beeches on the other side what he felt must have been the exact spot where his mother had peeped through the leaves upon her ardent lover, before she knew him. And he roamed about among the trees, feeling a subtle sense of satisfaction in being in the same places that they had been who gave him being, as though the spirits of their two natures must still haunt the spot and leave some trace of their presence even yet. He followed each of the three paths until he had decided to his own satisfaction by which one his mother had escaped from her pursuer, that day, and he laughed a buoyant, boyish laugh at the image it suggested of Verdayne, the misogynist—his stately, staid old Father Paul—actually "running after a woman!" Truly the Boy was putting aside his own sorrow and discontent to-day. He was living in the past, identifying himself with every phase of it, living in imagination the life of these two so dear to him, and rejoicing in their joy. Life had certainly been one sweet song to them, for a brief space, a duet in Paradise, broken up—alas for the Boy!—before it had become the trio it should have developed into, by every law of Nature.

He sought the little village that they had visited before him, and lunched at the same little hotel. He drove out to the little farmhouse where the lovers had had their first revelation of him—their baby—and he wept over the loss of the glorious mother she would have been to him. He even climbed the mountain and looked with her eyes out over the landscape. He was young and strong, and he determined to let nothing escape him—to let no sense of fatigue deter him—but to crowd the day full of memories of her.

The Boy, as his mother had been before him, was enraptured by all that he saw. The beauty of the snow-capped mountains against the blue of the sky and the golden glamour of the sunshine appealed to him keenly, and he watched the reflection of it all in the crystal lake in a trance of delight.

"Ah," he thought, "had they deliberately searched the world over for a fitting setting for their idyl, they could not have selected a retreat more perfect than this. It was made for lovers who love as they did."

And at last, under the witchery of the star-studded skies, wearied and hungry, but filled and thrilled with the fragrance and glory of the memories of the mother whom his young heart idealized, he left the launch at the landing by the terrace steps and started blithely for the little restaurant, dreaming, always dreaming, not of the future—but of the past.

For him, alas, the future held no promise!



CHAPTER XXII

During the Boy's absence that day a new guest had arrived at the little hotel. A capricious American lady, who had come to Lucerne, "for a day or two's rest," she said, before proceeding to Paris where an impatient Count awaited her and his wedding-day.

Yes, Opal was actually in Lucerne, and the suite of rooms once occupied by the mysterious Madame Zalenska were now given over to the little lady from over the seas, who, in spite of her diminutive stature, contrived to impress everybody with a sense of her own importance. She had just received a letter from her fiance, an unusually impatient communication, even from him. He was anxious, he said, for her and his long-delayed honeymoon. Honeymoon! God help her! Her soul recoiled in horror from the hideous prospect. Only two days more, she thought, pressing her lips tightly together. Oh, the horror of it! She dared not think of it, or she would go mad! But she would not falter. She had told herself that she was now resigned. She was going to defeat Fate after all!

She had partaken of her dinner, and was standing behind the ivy that draped the little balcony, watching the moon in its setting of Swiss skies and mystic landscape. How white and calm and spotless it appeared! It was not a man's face she saw there—but that of a woman—the face of a nun in its saintly, virgin purity, suggesting only sweet inspiring thoughts of the glory of fidelity to duty, of the comfort and peace and rest that come of renunciation.

Opal clasped her hands together with a thrill of exultation at her own victory over the love and longings that were never to be fulfilled. A song of prayer and thanksgiving echoed in her heart over the thought that she had been strong enough to do her duty and bear the cross that life had so early laid upon her shoulders. She felt so good—so true—so pure—so strong to-night. She would make her life, she thought—her life that could know no personal love—abound in love for all the world, and be to all it touched a living, breathing benediction.

As she gazed she suddenly noticed a lighted launch on the little lake, and an inexplicable prescience disturbed the calm of her musings. She watched, with an intensity she could not have explained, the gradual approach of the little craft. What did that boat, or its passenger, matter to her that she should feel such an acute interest in its movements? Yet something told her it did matter much, and though she laughed at her superstition, nevertheless her heart listened to it, and dared not gainsay its insistent whisper.

A young man, straight and tall and lithe, bounded from the launch and mounted the terrace steps. She saw his clean-cut profile, his well-groomed appearance, which even in the moonlight was plainly evident. She noted the regal bearing of his well-knit figure, and she caught the delicious aroma of the particular brand of cigar Paul always smoked, as he passed beneath the balcony where she stood.

She turned in very terror and fled to her rooms, pulling the curtains closer. She shrank like a frightened child upon the couch, her face white and drawn with fear—of what, she did not know.

After a time—long, terrible hours, it seemed to her—she parted the curtains with tremulous fingers and looked out again at the sky, and shuddered. The virgin nun-face had mysteriously changed—the moon that had looked so pure and spotless was now blood-red with passion.

Opal crept back, pulling the curtains together again, and threw herself face downward upon the couch. God help her!

* * * * *

Paul Zalenska lingered long over his dinner that night. He was tired and thoughtful. And he enjoyed sitting at that little table where his father perhaps sat the night he had first seen her who became his love.

And Paul pictured to himself that first meeting. He tried to imagine that he was Paul Verdayne, and that shortly his lady would come in with her stately tread, and take her seat, and be waited upon by her elderly attendant. Perhaps she would look at him through those long dark lashes with eyes that seemed not to see. But there was no special table, to-night, and the Boy felt that the picture was woefully incomplete—that he had been left out of the scheme of things entirely.

After finishing his meal, he went out, as his father had done, out under the stars and sat on the little bench under the ivy, and smoked a cigar. He felt a curious thrill of excitement, quite out of keeping with his loneliness. Was it just the memory of that old love-story that had stirred his blood? Why did his pulse leap, his blood race through his veins like this, his heart rise to his throat and hammer there so fiercely, so strangely. Only one influence in all the world had ever done this to him—only one influence—one woman—and she was miles and miles away!

Suddenly, impelled by some force beyond his power of resistance—a sense of someone's gaze fixed upon him, he raised his eyes to the ivy above him. There, faint and indistinct in the shadow of the leaves, but quite unmistakable, he saw the white, frightened face of the girl he loved, her luminous eyes looking straight down into his.

He sprang to his feet, and pulled himself up by the ivy to the level of the terrace, but she had vanished and the watching stars danced mockingly overhead. Was he dreaming? Had that strange old love-story taken away from him the last remaining shred of sanity? Surely he hadn't seen Opal! She was in Paris—damn it!—and he clenched his teeth at the thought—certainly not at Lucerne!

He looked at the windows of that enchanted room. All was darkness and silence. Cursing himself for a madman, he strode into the hall and examined the Visitors' List. Suddenly the blood leaped to his face—his head reeled—his heart beat to suffocation. He was not dreaming, for there, as plainly as words could be written, was the entry:

Miss Ledoux and maid, New Orleans, U. S. A.

She was there—in Lucerne!—his Opal!



CHAPTER XXIII

How Paul reached his room, he never knew. He was in an ecstasy—his young blood surging through his veins in response to the leap of the seething passions within.

Have you never felt it, Reader? If you have not, you had better lay aside this book, for you will never, never understand what followed—what must follow, in the very nature of human hearts.

Fate once more had placed happiness in his grasp—should he fling it from him? Never! never again! He remembered his mother and her great love, as she had bade him.

This day, following as it did his mother's letter, had been a revelation to him of the possibilities of life, and of his own capacity for enjoying it. In one week, only one week more, he must take upon his shoulders the burdens of a kingdom. Should he let a mistaken sense of right and duty defraud him a second time? Was this barrier—which a stronger or a weaker man would have brushed aside without a second thought—to wreck his life, and Opal's? He laughed exultingly. His whole soul was on fire, his whole body aflame.

Beyond the formality of the betrothal, Opal had not yet been bound to the Count. She was not his—yet! She could not be Paul's wife—Fate had made that forever impossible—but she should be his, as he knew she already was at heart.

They loved, and was not love—everything!

He paced the floor in an excitement beyond his control. Opal should give him, out of her life, one day—one day in the little hotel on the Buergenstock, where his mother and her lover had been so happy. They, too, should be happy—as happy as two mating birds in a new-built nest—for one day they would forget all yesterdays and all to-morrows. He would make that one day as glorious and shadowless for her as a day could possibly be made—one day in which to forget that the world was gray—- one day which should live in their memories throughout all the years to come as the one ray of sunshine in two bleak and dreary lives!

And tempted, as he admitted to himself, quite beyond all reason, he swore by all that he held sacred to risk everything—brave everything—for the sake of living one day in Paradise.

"We have a right to be happy," he said. "Everyone has a right to be happy, and we have done no wrong to the world. Why should we two, who have the capability of making so much of our lives and doing so much for the world, as we might have, together—why should we be sentenced to the misery of mere existence, while men and women far less worthy of happiness enjoy life in its utmost ecstasy?"

One thing he was firmly resolved upon. Opal should not know his real rank. She should give herself to Paul Zalenska, the man—not to Paul the Prince! His rank should gloss over nothing—nothing—and for all she knew now to the contrary, her future rank as Countess de Roannes was superior to his own.

And then as silence fell about the little hotel, unbroken save by some strolling musicians in the square near at hand who sent the most tender of Swiss love-melodies out upon the evening air, Paul walked out to the terrace, passed through the little gate, and reaching the balcony, knocked gently but imperatively upon the door of the room that was once his mother's.

The door was opened cautiously.

Paul stepped inside, and closed it softly behind him.



CHAPTER XXIV

In the moonlit room, Paul and Opal faced each other in a silence heavy with emotion.

It had been months since they parted, yet for some moments neither spoke. Opal first found her voice.

"Paul! You-saw me!"

"I felt your eyes!"

"Oh, why did I come!"

Opal had begun to prepare for the night and had thrown about her shoulders a loose robe of crimson silk. Her lustrous hair, like waves of burnished copper, hung below her waist in beautiful confusion. With trembling fingers she attempted to secure it.

"Your hair is wonderful, Opal! Please leave it as it is," Paul said softly. And, curiously enough, she obeyed in silence.

"Paul," she said at last, with a little nervous laugh, as she recovered her self-possession and seated herself on the couch, "don't stand staring at me! I'm not a tragedy queen! You're too melodramatic. Sit down and tell me why you've come here at this hour."

Paul obeyed mechanically, his gaze still upon her. She shrank from the expression of his eyes—it was the old tiger-look again!

"I came because I had to, Opal. I could not have done otherwise. I have something to tell you."

"Something to tell me?" she repeated.

"Yes. The most interesting story in the world to me, Opal—a letter from my mother—a letter to me alone, which I can share with only one woman in the world—the woman I love!"

Her eyes fell. As she raised her hand abstractedly to adjust the curtain, Paul saw the flash of her betrothal ring. He caught her hand in his and quietly slipped the ring from her finger. She seized the jewel with her free hand and tried to thrust it into her bosom.

"No! no!—not there!" he remonstrated, and was not satisfied until she had crossed the room and hidden it from his sight.

"Does that please your majesty?" she asked, with a curious little tremble in her voice.

Paul started, and stared at her with a world of wonder in his eyes. Could she know?

"Your majesty—" he stammered.

"Why not?" she laughed. "You speak as though you had but to command to be obeyed."

"Forgive me, dear," he answered softly.

And Opal became her sympathetic self again.

"Tell me about your mother, Paul," she said.

And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, told her the whole story as it had been told to him, reading much of his mother's letter to her, reserving only such portions of it as would reveal the identity he was determined to keep secret until she was his. The girl was moved to the depths of her nature by the beauty and pathos of it all, and then the thought came to her, "This, then, is Paul's heritage—his birthright! He, like me, is doomed!"

And her heart ached for him—and for herself!

But Paul did not give her long to muse. Sitting down beside her for the first time, he told her the plan he had been turning over in his mind for their one day together.

"Surely," he said, "it is not too much to ask out of a lifetime of misery—one little day of bliss! Just one day in which there shall be no yesterday, and no to-morrow—one day of Elysium against years of Purgatory! Let us have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father had theirs—even though it must be as brief as a butterfly's existence, let us not deny ourselves that much. I ask only one day!

"You love me, Opal. I love you. You are, of all the world of women, my chosen one, as I—no, don't shake your head, for you can't honestly deny it—am yours! We know we must soon part forever. Won't it be easier for both of us—both, I say—if for but one day, we can give to each other all! Won't all our lives be better for the memory of one perfect day? Think, Opal—to take out of all eternity just a few hours—and yet out of those few hours may be born sufficient courage for all the life to come! Don't you see? Can't you? Oh, I can't argue—I can't reason! I only want you to be mine—all mine—yes, if only for a few hours—all mine!"

"Paul, you are mad," she began, but he would not listen.

"Just one day," he pleaded—"no yesterday, and no to-morrow!"

He looked at her tenderly.

"Opal, it simply has to be—it's Fate! If it wasn't meant to be, why have we met here like this? Do you think we two are mere toys in the grip of circumstances? Or do you believe the gods have crossed our paths again just to tantalize us? Is that why we are here, Opal, you and I—together?"

"Why, I came to rest—to see Lucerne! Most tourists come to Lucerne! It's a—pretty—place—very!" she responded, lamely.

"Well, then, account for the rest of it. Why did I come?—and at the same time?—and find you here in my mother's room? Simply a coincidence? Answer me that! Chance plays strange freaks sometimes, I'll admit, but Fate is a little more than mere chance. Why did I hear your voice, that time? Why did I see you, and follow? Why did we find ourselves so near akin—so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each other? Answer me, Opal! Why was it, if we weren't created to be—one?"

After a moment of waiting he said, "Listen to the music, Opal! Only listen! Doesn't it remind you of dreams and visions—of fairyland, of happiness, and—love?"

But she could not answer.

At last she said slowly, "Oh, it's too late, Paul—too late!"

"Too late?" he echoed. "It's never too late to take the good the gods send! Never, while love lasts!"

"But the Count, Paul—and your fiancee! Think, Paul, think!"

"I can't think! What does the Count matter, Opal! Nothing—nothing makes any difference when you are face to face with destiny and your soul-mate calls! It has to be—it has to be!—can't you—won't you—see it?"

"God help all poor souls lost in the dark!" She did see it. It stared her relentlessly in the face and tugged mercilessly at her heart with fingers of red-hot steel! She covered her face with her hands, but she could not shut out the terrible image of advancing Death that held for her all the charm of a serpent's eye. She struggled, as virgin woman has always struggled. But in her heart she knew that she would yield. What was her weak woman's nature after all, when pitted against the strength of the man she loved!

"Oh, I was feeling so pure—so good—so true—to-night! Are there not thousands of beautiful women in the world who might be yours for the asking? Could you not let the poor Count have his wife and his honeymoon in peace?"

Honeymoon! She shuddered at the thought.

"Sweetheart," he whispered, "by every God-made law of Nature you are mine—mine—mine! What care we for the foolish, man-made conventions of this or any other land? There is only one law in the universe—the divine right of the individual to choose for himself his mate!"

Then his whisper became softer—more enticing—more resistless in its passionate appeal.

He was pleading with his whole soul—this prince who with one word could command the unquestioning obedience of a kingdom! But the woman in his arms did not know that, and it would have made no difference if she had! In that supreme moment it was only man and woman.

Opal gazed in amazement at this revelation of a new Paul. How splendid he was! What a king among all the men she knew! What a god in his manhood's glory!—a god to make the hearts of better and wiser women than she ache—and break—with longing! Her hand stole to her heart to still the fury of its beating.

"Opal," he breathed, "I have wanted you ever since that mad moment in gray old London when I first caught the lure in your glorious eyes—do you remember, sweetheart? I know you are mine—and you know it—girl!

His voice sank lower and lower, growing more and more intense with suppressed passion. Opal was held spell-bound by the subtle charm of his languorous eyes. She wanted to cry out, but she could not speak—she could not think—the spell of his fascination overpowered her.

She felt her eyes grow humid. Her heart seemed to struggle upward, till it caught in her throat like a huge lump of molten lead and threatened to choke her with its wild, hot pulsations.

"I love you, Opal! I love you! and I want you! God! how I want you!" Paul stammered on, with a catch in his boyish voice it made her heart leap to hear. "I want your eyes, Opal—your hair—your lips—your glorious self! I want you as man never wanted woman before!"

He paused, dazed by his own passion, maddened by her lack of response—blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and his brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out from every vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she going to close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in the very hour of his triumph rob him of the one day—his little day?

It was too much.

More overwhelmed by her lack of response than by any words she could have uttered, Paul hesitated. Then, speech failing him, half-dazed, he stumbled toward the door.

"Paul!... Paul!"

He heard her call as one in dreamland catches the far-off summons of earth's realities. He turned. She stretched out her arms to him—those round, white arms.

"I understand you, Paul! I do understand." She threw her arms around his neck and drew his face down to hers. "Yes, I love you, Paul, I love you! Do you hear, I love you! I am yours—utterly—heart, mind, soul, and body! Don't you know that I am yours?"

She was in his arms now, weeping strange, hot tears of joy, her heart throbbing fiercely against his own.

"Paul—Paul—I am mad, I think!—we are both mad, you and I!"

And as their lips at last met in one long, soul-maddening kiss, and the intoxication of the senses stole over them, she murmured in the fullness of her surrender, "Take me! Crush me! Kiss me! My love—my love!"



CHAPTER XXV

The morning dawned. The morning of their one day.

Nature had done her best for them and made it all that a May day should be. There was not one tint, nor tone, nor bit of fragrance lacking. Silver-throated birds flooded the world with songs of love. The very air seemed full of beauty and passion and the glory and joy of life in the dawn of its fullness.

Their arrangements had been hasty, but complete. Paul had stolen away from Lucerne in the middle of the night, to be ready to welcome his darling at the-first break of the morning; and it was at a delightfully early hour that they met at the little hotel on the Buergenstock where his mother's love-dream had waxed to its idyllic perfection, one-and-twenty years ago. They sat on the balcony and ate their simple breakfast, looking down to where the reflection of the snow-crowned mountains trembled in the limpid lake.

Opal had never before looked so lovely, he thought. She was gowned in the simplest fashion in purest white, as a bride should be, her glorious hair arranged in a loose, girlish knot, while her lustrous eyes were cast down, shyly, and her cheeks were flushed—flushed with the revelations and memories of the night just passed—flushed with the promise of the day just dawning—flushed with love, with slumbering, smouldering passion—with wifehood!

How completely she was his when she had once surrendered!

In their first kiss of greeting, they bridged over, in one ecstatic moment, the hours of their brief separation. When he finally withdrew his lips from hers, with a deep sigh of momentary satisfaction, she looked up into his eyes with something of the old, capricious mischief dancing in her own.

"Let us make the most of our day, darling, our one day!" she said. "We must not waste a single minute of it."

Opal had stolen away from Lucerne and had come up the mountain absolutely unattended. She would share her secret with no one, she said, and Paul had acquiesced. And now he took her up in his arms as one would carry a little child, and bore her off to the suite he had engaged for them. What a bit of a thing she was to wield such an influence over a man's whole life!

A pert little French maid waited upon them. She eyed with great favor the distingue young monsieur, and his charmante epouse! There was a knowing twinkle in her eye—she had not been a femme de chambre even a little while without learning to scent a lune de miel! And this promised to be especially piquante. But Paul would have none of her, and she tripped away disappointed of her coveted divertissement.

Paul was very jealous and exacting and even domineering this morning, and would permit no intrusion. He would take care of madame, he had informed the girl, and when she had taken herself away, he repeated it emphatically. Opal was his little girl, he said, and he was going to pet and coddle her himself. Femme de chambre indeed! Wasn't he worth a dozen of the impertinent French minxes! Wanted to coquette with him, most likely—thought he might be ready to yawn over madame's charms! She could keep her pretty ankles out of his sight—he wasn't interested in them!

How Paul thrilled at the touch of everything Opal wore! Soft delicious things they were, and he handled them with an awkward reverence that brought tears to her eyes. They spoke a strange, shy language of their own—these little, filmy bits of fine linen.

Oh, but it was good, thought Opal, to be taken care of like this!—to be on these familiar terms with the Boy she loved—to give him the right to love her and do these little things, so sacred in a woman's life. And to Paul it meant more than even she guessed. It was such a new world to him. He felt that he was treading on holy ground, and, for the moment, was half-afraid.

And thus began their one day—the one day that was to know no yesterday, and no tomorrow!

They found it hard to remember that part of it at all times. He would grow reminiscent for an instant, and begin, "Do you remember—" and she would catch him up quickly with a whispered, "No yesterday, Paul!" And again, it would be his turn, for a troubled look would cloud the joy of her eyes, and she would start to say, "What shall I do—" or "When I go to Paris—" and Paul would snatch her to his heart and remind her that there was "No tomorrow!"

All the forenoon she lay in his arms, crying out with little inarticulate gurgles of joy under his caresses, lavishing a whole lifetime's concentrated emotion upon him in a ferocity of passion that seemed quenchless.

And Paul was in the seventh heaven—mad with love! He was learning that there were tones in that glorious voice that he had never heard before, depths in those eyes that he had never fathomed—and those tones, those depths, were all for him, for him alone—aye, had been waiting there through all eternity for his awakening touch.

"Opal," he said, earnestly, "perhaps it was here—on this very spot, it may be, who knows—that my mother gave herself to my father!

But she could only smile at him through fast-gathering tears—strange tears of mingled joy and wonder and pain.

And he covered her face, her neck, her shoulders with burning kisses, and cried out in an ecstasy of bliss, "Oh, my love! My life!"

And thus the morning hours died away.



CHAPTER XXVI

And behold, it was noon!

The day and their love stood still together. The glamour of the day, the resistless force of their masterful love that seemed to them so unlike all other loves of which they had ever heard or dreamed, held them in a transport of delight that could only manifest itself in strange, bitter-sweet caresses, in incoherent murmurings.

This, then, was love! Aye, this was Love!

The thoughts of the two returned with a tender, persistent recollection to the love-tale of the past—the delicious idyl of love that had given birth to this boy. Here, even here, had been spent those three maddest and gladdest of weeks—that dream of an ideal love realized in its fullness, as it is given to few to realize.

Yes, that was Love!

It was youth eternal—youth and fire, power and passion.

It was May! May!

* * * * *

It was mid-afternoon before they awakened, to look into each other's eyes with a new understanding. Surely never since the world began had two souls loved each other as did these!

And what should they do with the afternoon? Such a little while remained for them—such a little while!

Paul drew out his mother's letter, and together they read it, understanding now, as they had not been able to understand before, its whole wonderful significance.

When they read of the first dawn of the hope of parentage in the hearts of these long-ago lovers, their eyes met, heavy with the wistfulness of renunciation. That consolation, alas! was not for them. Only the joy of loving could ever be theirs.

And then, drawing out the other letters that had accompanied his mother's, Paul revealed to his darling the whole mystery of his identity.

At first she was startled—almost appalled—at the thought that she had given herself to a Prince of the Purple—a real king of a real kingdom—and for a moment felt a strange awe of him.

But Paul, reading her unspoken thought in her eyes, with that sweet clairvoyance that had always existed between them, soothed and petted and caressed her till the smiles returned to her face and she nestled in his arms, once more happy and content.

She was the queen of his soul, he told her, whoever might wear the crown and bear the title before the world. Then, very carefully, lest he should wound her, he told her the whole story of the Princess Elodie.

Opal moved across the room and stood drumming idly by the long, open window. He watched her anxiously.

"Paul, did you go to see her as you promised—and is she ...pretty?"

"She is a cow!"

"Paul!" Opal laughed at his tone.

"Oh, but she is! Fancy loving a cow!"

Opal's heart grew heavy with a great pity for this poor, unfortunate royal lady who was to be Paul's wife—the mother of his children—but never, never his Love!

"But, Paul, you'll be good to her, won't you? I know you will! You couldn't be unkind to any living thing."

And she ran into his arms, and clasped his neck tight! And the poor Princess Elodie was again forgotten!

"You—Opal—are my real wife," Paul assured her, "the one love of my soul, the mate the gods have formed for me—my own forever!"

Opal wept for pity of him, and for herself, but she faced the future bravely. She would always be his guiding star, to beckon him upward!

"And, Opal, my darling," Paul went on, "I promise you to live henceforth a life of which you shall be proud. I will be brave and true and noble and great and pure—to prove my gratitude to the gods for giving me this one day—for giving me you, dearest—and your love—your wonderful love! I will be worthy, dear—I will! I'll be your knight—your Launcelot—and you shall be my Guenevere! I will always wear your colors in my heart, dear—the red-brown of your hair, the glorious hazel of your eyes, the flush of your soft cheek, the rose of your sweet lips, the virgin whiteness of your soul!"

Opal looked at him with eyes brimming with pride. Young as he was, he was indeed every inch a king.

And she had crowned him king of her heart and soul and life before she had known! Oh, the wonder of it!—the strange, sweet wonder of it! He, who might have loved and mated where he would, had chosen her to be his love! She could not realize it. It was almost beyond belief, she thought, that she—plain little Opal Ledoux—could stir such a nature as his to such a depth as she knew she had stirred it.

Ah, the gods had been good to her! They had sent her the Prince Charming, and he had wakened her with his kiss—that first kiss—how well she remembered it—and how utterly she belonged to him!

Then she remembered that, however much they tried to deceive themselves, there was a to-morrow—a to-morrow that would surely come—a to-morrow in which they would not belong to each other at all. He would belong to the world. She would belong to a—

She sprang up at the recollection, and drew the curtains of the window closer together.

"We will shut out the cold, inquisitive, prying old world," she said. "It shall not look, shall not listen! It is a hard, cruel world, my Paul. It would say that I must not put my arms around your neck—like this—must not lay my cheek against yours—so—must not let my heart feel the wild throbbing of yours—and why? Because I do not wear your ring, Paul—that's all!"

She held up her white hand for his inspection, and surveyed it critically.

"See, Paul—there is no glittering, golden fetter to hold me to you with the power of an iron band, and so I must not—let you hold me to you at all"

They both laughed merrily, and then Paul, pulling her down on his knee and holding her face against his own, whispered, "What care we for the old world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we are—if we only knew! And who knows how much worse? It has petty bickerings, damning lies of spite and malice, trickery and thievery and corruption on its conscience. Let the little people of the world prate of their little things! We are free, dearest—and we defy it, don't we? Our ideals are never lost. And ideals are the life of love. Is love—a love like ours—a murderer of life?"

"Sometimes, Paul—sometimes! I fear it—I do fear it!"

"Never fear, Opal, my beloved! You need not fear anything—anywhere! I will stand between you and the world, dear—between you and hell itself! My God, girl, how I love you! Opal! My Opal! My heart aches with the immensity of it! Come, my love, my queen, my treasure, come! We have not many more hours to—live! And I want you close, close—all mine! Ah, Opal, we are masters of life and death! All earth, all heaven, and—hell itself, cannot take you from me now!"

Oh, if scone moments in life could only be eternal!



CHAPTER XXVII

And the day—died!

The sun sank beneath the western horizon; the moon cast her silvery sheen over the weary world; the twinkling stars appeared in the jewelled diadem of night; and the silence of evening settled over mountain and lake and swaying tree, while the two who had dared all things for the sake of this one day, looked into each other's eyes now with a sudden realization of the end.

They had not allowed themselves once to think of the hour of separation.

And now it was upon them! And they were not ready to part.

"How do people say good-by forever, Paul?—people who love as we love? How do they say it, dear? Tell me!"

"But it is not forever, Opal. Don't you know that you will always be part of my life—my soul-life, which is the only true one—its sanctifying inspiration? You must not forget that—never, never!"

"No, I won't forget it, my King!" She delighted in giving him his title now. "That satisfaction I will hold to as long as I live!"

"But, Opal, am I never to see you?—never? Surely we may meet sometimes—rarely, of course, at long intervals, when life grows gray and gloomy, and I am starving for one ray of the sunshine of your smile?"

"It would be dangerous, Paul, for both of us!"

"But the world is only a little place after all, beloved. We shall be thrown together again by Fate—as we have been this time."

Then she smiled at him archly. "Ah, Paul, I know you so well! Your eyes are saying that you will often manage to see me 'by chance'—but you must not, dear, you must not"

"Girl, I can never forget one word you have uttered, one caress you have given—one tone of your voice—one smile of your lips—one glance of your eye—never, never in God's world!"

"Hold me closer, Paul, and teach me to be brave!"

They clung together in an agony too poignant for words, too mighty for tears! And of the unutterable madness and anguish of those last bitter kisses of farewell, no mortal pen can write!

But theirs had been from the beginning a mad love—a mad, hopeless, fatal love—and it could bring neither of them happiness nor peace—nothing but the bitterness of eternal regret!

And thus the day—their one day of life—came to an end!

* * * * *

That evening, from the hotel at Lucerne, two telegrams flashed over the wires. One was addressed to the Count de Roannes, Paris, and read as follows:

"Shall reach Paris Monday afternoon.—Opal."

The other was addressed to Sir Paul Verdayne, at Venice, and was not signed at all, saying simply,

"A son awaits his father in Lucerne."



CHAPTER XXVIII

That night a sudden storm swept across Lucerne.

The thunder crashed like the boom of a thousand cannon; like menacing blades the lightning flashed its tongues of savage flame; the winds raved in relentless fury, rocking the giant trees like straws in the majesty of their wrath. Madness reigned in undisputed sovereignty, and the earth cowered and trembled beneath the anger of the threatening heavens.

Opal crouched in her bed, and buried her head in the pillows. She had never before known the meaning of fear, but now she was alone, and the consciousness of guilt was upon her—the acute agony of their separation mingled with the despairing prospect of a long, miserable loveless—yes, shameful,—life as the legal slave of a man she abhorred.

She did not regret the one day she had given to her lover. Whatever the cost, she would never, never regret, she said to herself, for it had been well worth any price that might be required of her. She gloried in it, even now, while the storm raged outside.

And the thunders crashed like the falling of mighty rocks upon the roof over her head. Should she summon Celeste, her maid?

Suddenly, as the tempest paused as if to catch its breath, she heard footsteps in the corridor outside. It was very late—who could be prowling about at this hour? She listened intently, every nerve and sense keenly alert. Nearer and nearer the steps came, and then she remembered with a start that in the excitement of her stealthy return to the hotel and the anguish and madness of their parting, she had forgotten to fasten her door.

There came a light tap on the panel. She did not speak or move—hardly breathed. Then the door opened, noiselessly, cautiously, and he—her lover, her king—entered, the dim light of her room making his form, as it approached, appear of even more than its usual majestic height and power.

"Paul!" she whispered.

He seemed in a strange daze. Had the storm gone to his head and driven him mad?

"Yes, it is I," he said hoarsely. "It is Paul. Don't cry out. See, I am calm!" and he laid his hand on hers. It was burning with fever. "I will not hurt you, Opal!"

Cry out? Hurt her? What did he mean? She had no thought of crying out. Of course he would not hurt her—her lover, her lord, her king! Did she not belong to him—now?

He sat down and took her hands in his.

"Opal," he muttered, "I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, till I feel half-mad—yes, mad! Dearest, I cannot give you up like this—I cannot! Let you go to his arms—you who have been mine! Oh, Opal, I've pictured it all to myself—seen you in his arms—seen his lips on yours—seen—seen—Can't you imagine what it means to me? It's more than I can stand, dearest! I may be crazy—I believe I am—but wouldn't it be better for you and me to—to—cease forever this mockery of life, and—forget?"

She did not understand him.

"Forget?" she murmured, holding his hand against her cheek, while her free arm pulled his head down to hers. "Forget?"

He pressed his burning lips to her cool neck, and then, after a moment, went on, "Yes, beloved, to forget. Think, Opal, think! To forget all ambition, all restlessness, all disappointment, all longing for what can never be, all pain, all suffering, all thought of responsibility or growth or desire, all success or failure—all life, all death—to forget! to forget! Ah, dearest, one must have loved as we have loved, and lost as we have lost, to wish to—forget!"

"But there is no such respite for us, Paul. We are not the sort who can put memory aside. To live will be to remember!"

"Yes, that is it. To live is to remember. But why should we live longer? We've lived a lifetime in one day, have we not, sweetheart? What more has life to give us?"

He was calmer now, but it was the calmness of determination.

"Let us die, dear—let us die! Virginius slew his daughter to save her honor. You are more to me than a thousand daughters. You are my wife, Opal!—Opal, my very own!"

His eyes softened again, as the storm outside lulled for a moment.

"My darling, don't be afraid! I will save you from him. I will keep you mine—mine!"

The thunder crashed again, and again the fury leaped to his eyes. He drew from his pocket a curious foreign dagger, engraved with quaint designs, and glittering with encrusted gold. Opal recognized it at once. She had toyed with it the day before, admiring the richness of its material and workmanship.

"She—has been—mine—my wife," he muttered to himself, wildly, disconnectedly, yet with startling distinctness. "She shall never, never lie in his arms!"

He passed his hand across his eyes, as if to brush away a veil.

"Oh, the red! the red! the red! It's blood and fire and hell! It glares in my eyes! It screams in my ears! Bidding me kill! kill!"

He clasped her to him fiercely.

"To see you, after all this—to see you go from me—and know you were going to him—him—while I went ... Oh, beloved! beloved! God never meant that! Surely He never meant that when He created us the creatures that we are!"

She kissed his hot, quivering lips. She had not loved him so much in all their one mad day as she loved him now.

"Paul," she whispered, "beloved!—what would you do?"

There was only a great wonder in her eyes, not the faintest sign of fear. Even in his anguish the Boy noticed that.

"What would I do? Listen, Opal, my darling. Don't you remember, you said it was not life but death—and I said it was both! And it is! it is! I thought I was strong enough to brave hell! Opal—though you are betrothed to the Count de Roannes you are my wife! And our wedding-journey shall be eternal—through stars, Opal, and worlds—far-off, glimmering worlds—our freed spirits together, always together—together!"

She watched him, fascinated, spell-bound.

"Dear heart, Nature will not repulse us," Paul continued. "She will gather us to her great, warm, peaceful heart, beloved!"

Opal held him close to her breast, almost maternally, with a great longing to soothe and calm his troubled spirit.

"Think," he continued, "of what my poor, unhappy mother said was the cost of love—'Sorrow and death!' We have had the sorrow, God knows! And now for death! Kiss me, dearest, dearest! Kiss me for time and for eternity, Opal, for in life and in death we can never part more!"

She kissed him—obediently, solemnly—and then, holding her to him, drinking in all the love that still shone for him in those eyes that had driven him to desperation, he suddenly plunged the little dagger to its hilt through her heart.

She did not cry out. She did not even shudder. But looking at him with "the light that never was on sea or land" in her still brilliant eyes, she murmured, "In—life—and—in—death ... beloved! beloved!"

And while he whispered between his set lips, "Sleep, my beloved, sleep," her little head dropped back against his arm with a long, peaceful sigh.

He held her form tenderly to his heart, murmuring senseless, meaningless words of comfort and love, like a mother crooning her babe to sleep. And he still clasped her there till the new day peeped through the blinds. And the storm raged at intervals with all the ferocity of unspent passion. But his passion was over now, and he laughed a savage laugh of triumph.

No one could take her from him now—no one! His darling was his—his wife—in life and in death!

He laid her down upon the bed and arranged the blankets over her tenderly, hiding the hideous, gaping wound, with its unceasing flow; carefully from sight. He closed her eyes, kissing them as he did so, and folded her little white hands together, and then he pulled out the disarranged lace at her throat and smoothed it mechanically, till it lay quite to his satisfaction. Opal was so fastidious, he thought—so particular about these little niceties of dress. She would like to look well when they found her—dear Heaven!—to-morrow!

"No to-morrow!" he thought. They had spoken more wisely than they knew. There would be no to-morrow for her—nor for him!

There was a tiny spot of blood upon the frill of her sleeve, and he carefully turned it under, out of sight. He looked at the ugly stains upon his own garments with a thrill of satisfaction. She was his! Was it not quite right and proper that her blood should be upon him?

But even then, frenzied as he was, he had a singular care for appearances, a curious regard for detail, and busied himself in removing all signs of his presence from her chamber—all tell-tale traces of the storm of passion that swept away her life—and his! He felt himself already but the ghost of his former self, and laughed a weird, half-mad laugh at the thought as it came to him.

He bent over her again. He would have given much to have lain down beside her and slept his last sleep in her cold, lifeless arms. But no! Even this was denied him!

He wound a tress of her hair about his fingers, and it clung and twined there as her white fingers had been wont to twine. Oh, the pity of her stillness—her silence—who was never still nor silent—never indifferent to his presence! She looked so like a sleeping child in her whiteness and tranquillity, her red-brown hair in disordered waves about her head, her eyes closed in the last long sleep. And he wept as he pressed his burning lips to hers, so cold, so pitifully cold, and for the first time unresponsive. Oh, God, unresponsive forever!

"Poor little girl!" he moaned, between sobs of hopeless pain. "Poor little passionate girl!... Poor little tired Opal!"

And with a dry sob of unutterable anguish, he picked up the dagger—the cruel, kind little dagger—and crept to his own room.

The dagger was still wet with her blood. "Her blood!—Oh, God!-her blood!—hers! All mine in life, and yet never so much mine as now—mine in death!—all mine! mine! And she was not afraid—not the least afraid! Her eyes had room only for her overwhelming love—love—just love, no fear, even that hour when face to face with the Great Mystery. And this was her blood—hers!"

He believed that she had been glad to die. He believed—oh, he was sure, that death in his arms—and from his hand—had been sweeter than life could have been—with that wretch—and always without him—her lover! Yes, she had been glad to die. She had been grateful for her escape! And again the dagger drew his fascinated gaze and wrung from his lips the cry, "Her blood—hers! God in Heaven! Her blood!—hers!"

He put his hand to his head with an inarticulate cry of bewilderment. Then, with one supreme effort, he began to stagger hastily but noiselessly about the room. The servants of the house were already astir, and the day would soon be here. He put his sacred letters carefully away, and destroyed all worthless papers, mechanically, but still methodically.

Then he hastily scribbled a few lines, and laid them beside his letters, for Verdayne would be with him now in a few hours. His father—yes, his own father! How he would like to see him once more—just once more—with the knowledge of their relationship as a closer bond between them—to talk about his mother—his beautiful, queenly mother—and her wonderful, wonderful love! Yet—and he sighed as he thought of his deserted kingdom—after all, all in vain—in vain! It was not to be—all that glory—that triumph! Fate had willed differently. He was obeying the Law!

And his mother would not fail to understand. Verdayne must have loved his mother like this! O God, Love was a fearful thing, he thought, to wreck a life—a terrible thing, even a hideous thing—but in spite of everything it was all that was worth living for—and dying for!

The storm had spent its fury now, and only the steady drip, drip of the rain reminded him of the falling of tears.

"Opal!" he groaned, "Opal!" And he threw himself upon the bed, clasping his dagger in uncontrollable agony. "O life is cruel, hard, bitter! I'll none of it!—we'll none of it, you and I!" His voice grew triumphant in its raving. "It was worth all the cost—even the sorrow and death! But the end has come! Opal! Opal! I am coming, sweet!—coming!"

And the dagger, still red with the blood of his darling, found its unerring way to his own heart; and Paul Zalenska forgot his dreams, his ambitions, his love, his passion, and his despair in the darkness and quiet of eternal sleep.

"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."



CHAPTER XXIX

Sir Paul Verdayne reached Lucerne on the afternoon of the next day. He was as eager as a boy for the reunion with his son. How he loved the Boy—his Boy—the living embodiment of a love that seemed to him greater than any other love the world had ever known.

The storm had ceased and in the brilliancy of the afternoon sunshine little trace of the fury of the night could be seen. Nature smiled radiantly through the tear-drops still glistening on tree and shrub and flower, like some capricious coquette defying the world to prove that she had ever been sad.

To Sir Paul, the place was hallowed with memories of his Queen, and his heart and soul were full of her as he left the train. At the station Vasili awaited him with the news of the double tragedy that had horrified Lucerne.

In that moment, Sir Paul's heart broke. He grasped at the faithful servitor for a support the old man was scarce able to give. He looked up into the pitying face, grown old and worn in the service of the young King and his heart thrilled, as it ever thrilled, at the sight of the long, cruel scar he remembered so well—the scar which the Kalmuck had received in the service of his Queen, long years before.

Sir Paul loved Vasili for that—loved him even more for the service he had done the world when he choked to death the royal murderer of his Queen, on the fatal night of that tragedy so cruelly alive in his memory. He looked again at the scar on the swarthy face, and yet he knew it was as nothing to the scar made in the old man's heart that day.

In some way—they never knew how—they managed to reach the scene of the tragedy, and Sir Paul, at his urgent request, was left alone with the body of his son.

Oh, God! Could he bear this last blow—and live?

After a time, when reason began to re-assert itself, he searched and found the letters that had told the Boy-king the story of his birth. Was there no word at all for him—his father?—save the brief telegram he had received the night before?

Ah, yes! here was a note. His Boy had thought of him, then, even at the last. He read it eagerly.

"Father—dear Father—you who alone of all the world can understand—forgive and pity your son who has found the cross too heavy—the crown too thorny—to bear! I go to join my unhappy mother across the river that men call death—and there together we shall await the coming of the husband and father we could neither of us claim in this miserable, gray old world. Father Paul—dearest and best and truest of fathers, your Boy has learned with you the cost of love, and has gladly paid the price—'sorrow and death!'"

He bent again over the cold form, he pushed aside the clustering curls, and kissed again and again, with all the fervor and pain of a lifetime's repression, the white marble face of his son.

And a few words of that little note rang in his ears unceasingly—"dearest, and best, and truest of fathers!" Truest of fathers! Ah, yes! The Boy—his Boy—had understood!

And the scalding tears came that were his one salvation, for they washed away for a time some of the deadly ache from his bereaved heart.

* * * * *

When the force of his outburst was spent, Sir Paul Verdayne mastered himself resolutely. There was much to be done. It was indeed a double torture to find such an affliction here, of all places under Heaven, but he told himself that his Queen would have him brave and strong, and master his grief as an English gentleman should. And her wishes were still, as they had ever been, the guide of his every thought and action.

One thing he was determined upon. The world must never know the truth.

To be sure, Sir Paul himself did not know the secret of that one day. He could only surmise. Even Vasili did not know. The Boy had cleverly managed to have the day, as he had the preceding one, "all to himself," as he had informed Vasili, and Opal had been equally skillful in escaping the attendance of her maid. They had left the hotel separately at night, in different directions, returning separately at night. Who was there to suspect that they had passed the day together, or had even met each other at all? Surely—no one!

And what was there for the world to know, in the mystery of their death? Nothing! They were each found alone, stabbed to the heart, and the dagger that had done the deed had not even been withdrawn from the body of the Boy, when they found him. Sir Paul and Vasili had recognized it, but who would dare to insinuate that the same dagger had drunk the blood of the young American lady, or to say whose hand had struck either blow? It was all a mystery, and Sir Paul was determined that it should remain so.

Money can accomplish anything, and though all Europe rang with the story, no scandal—nor hint of it—besmirched the fair fame of the unhappy Boy and girl who had loved "not wisely, but too well!"

There had, indeed, been for them, as they had playfully said—"No to-morrow!"

And Sir Paul Verdayne, kneeling by the bier, with its trappings of a kingdom's mourning, which hid beneath its rich adornment all the joy that life for twenty years had held for him, felt for the first time a sense of guilt, as he looked back upon his past.

He did not regret his love. He could never do that! Truly, a man and a woman had a right to love and mate as they would, if the consequences of their deeds rested only upon their own heads. But to bring children into the world, the fruit of such a union, to suffer and die, "for the sins of the fathers," as his son had suffered and died—there was the sin—a selfish, unpardonable sin! "And the wages of sin is death."

He had never felt the truth before. He had been so happy in his Boy, and so proud of his future, that there had never been a question in his mind. But now he was face to face with the terrible consequences.

"Oh, God!" he cried, "truly my punishment is just—but it is greater than I can bear!"

* * * * *

And Paul Verdayne—what of him? Of course you want to know. Read the sequel

HIGH NOON

A powerful, stirring love-story of twenty years after. Abounding in beautiful descriptions and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl will instantly appeal to the million and a quarter people who have read and enjoyed "Three Weeks." You can get this book from your bookseller, or for 60c., carriage paid, from the publishers

The Macaulay Company, Publishers, 15 W. 38th St., New York



Successful Novels from Famous Plays

TO-DAY

By George H. Broadhurst and Abraham S. Schomer.

Price $1.25 net; postage 12 cents

This novel tells what follows in the wake of the average American woman's desire to keep up with the social procession. All the human emotions are dealt with in a masterly way in this great book.

THE FAMILY CUPBOARD

By Owen Davis.

Price $1.25 net; postage 12 cents

A work of fiction which presents a frank treatment of the domestic problems of to-day. It tells what happens in many homes when the wife devotes herself wholly to society, to the exclusion of her own husband. Mere man sometimes revolts, when regarded only as a money-making machine.

AT BAY

From the drama by George Scarborough.

Price $1.25 net; postage 12 cents

This stirring detective story holds the attention of the reader from the very start. It is full of action, presenting a baffling situation, the solving of which carries one along in a whirlwind of excitement. Through the story runs a love plot that is interwoven with the mystery of a secret-service case.

The Macaulay Company, Publishers

15 West 38th Street New York



The Night of Temptation

By VICTORIA CROSS

Author of

"LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW," "FIVE NIGHTS," etc.

* * * * *

This book takes for its keynote the self-sacrifice of woman in her love. Regina, the heroine, gives herself to a man for his own sake, for the happiness she can give him. He is her hero, her god, and she declines to marry him until she is satisfied that he cannot live without her.

The London Athenaeum says: "Granted beautiful, rich, perfect, passionate men and women, the author is capable of working out their destiny."

Price $1.25 net; Postage 12 Cents

* * * * *

The Macaulay Company, Publishers

15 West 38th Street New York



The Secret of the Night

By GASTON LEROUX

Author of "THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM," etc.

* * * * *

Another thrilling mystery story in which the famous French detective hero, Joseph Rouletabille, makes his appearance before the public again. This character has won a place in the hearts of novel readers as no other detective has since the creation of Sherlock Holmes.

Thousands upon thousands of people in two continents await eagerly every book by Gaston Leroux that relates the adventures of the hero of "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the Lady in Black."

Price $1.25 net; Postage 12 Cents

* * * * *

The Macaulay Company, Publishers

15 West 38th Street New York



Guardian Angels

By MARCEL PREVOST

Member of the Academie Francaise, Officer of the Legion of Honour

Author of "SIMPLY WOMEN," Etc.

* * * * *

Every married woman ought to read this novel, if only to be forewarned against a danger that may one day invade her own home. It is a story of the double life led by the governesses of many young girls, showing the dangers of such companionships.

It is no exaggeration to say that "Guardian Angels" is one of the most remarkable novels that have been issued in any language during recent years.

Price $1.25 net; Postage 12 Cents

* * * * *

=The Macaulay Company, Publishers

15 West 38th Street New York=



The Crown Novels

FAMOUS BOOKS AT POPULAR PRICES

HER SOUL AND HER BODY, By Louise Closser Hale

The struggle between the spirit and the flesh of a young girl early in life compelled to make her own way. Exposed to the temptations of life in a big city, the contest between her better and lower natures is described with psychological analysis and tender sympathy. Absorbingly interesting.

HELL'S PLAYGROUND, by Ida Vera Simonton

This book deals with primal conditions in a land where "there ain't no ten commandments"; where savagery, naked and unashamed, is not confined to the blacks. It is a record of the life in the African tropics and it is a powerful and fascinating story of a scene that has rarely been depicted in fiction.

THE MYSTERY OF No. 47, by J. Storer Clouston

This is a most ingenious detective story—a thriller in every sense of the word. The reader is led cleverly on until he is at a loss to know what to expect, and, completely baffled, is unable to lay the book down until he has finished the story and satisfied his perplexity.

THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE, by Reginald Wright Kauffman

Author of "The House of Bondage;" etc.

By "The Sentence of Silence" is meant that sentence of reticence pronounced upon the subject of sex. That which means the continuance of the human race is the one thing of which no one is permitted to speak. In this book the subject is dealt with frankly.

THE GIRL THAT GOES WRONG, by Reginald Wright Kauffman

Author of "The House of Bondage."

The inexpressible conditions of human bondage of many young girls and women in our cities demand fearless and uncompromising warfare. The terrible peril that lingers just around the corner from every American home must be stamped out with relentless purpose.

TO-MORROW, by Victoria Cross

Author of "Life's Shop Window." etc.

Critics agree that this is Victoria Cross' greatest novel. Those who have read "Life's Shop Window," "Five Nights," "Anna Lombard," and similar books by this author will ask no further recommendation. "To-morrow" is a real novel—not a collection of short stories.

SIMPLY WOMEN, by Marcel Prevost

"Like a motor-car or an old-fashioned razor, this book should be in the hands of mature persons only."—St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"Marcel Prevost. of whom a critic remarked that his forte was the analysis of the souls and bodies of a type half virgin and half courtesan, is now available in a volume of selections admirably translated by R.I. Brandon-Vauvillez."—San Francisco Chronicle.

THE ADVENTURES OF A NICE YOUNG MAN, by Aix Joseph and Potiphar's Wife Up-to-Date

A handsome young, man, employed as a lady's private secretary, is bound, to meet with interesting adventures.

"Under a thin veil the story unquestionably sets forth actual episodes and conditions in metropolitan circles."—- Washington Star.

HER REASON, Anonymous

This startling anonymous work of a well-known English novelist is a frank exposure of Modern Marriage. "Her Reason" shows the deplorable results of the process at work to-day among the rich, whose daughters are annually offered for sale in the markets of the world.

THE COUNTERPART, by Horner Cotes

One of the best novels of the Civil War ever written. John Luther Loag, the well-known writer, says of this book—"It is a perfectly bully story and full of a fine sentiment. I have read it all—and with great interest."

THE PRINCESS OF FORGE, by George C. Shedd

The tale of a man, and a maid, and a gold-mine—a stirring, romantic American novel of the West. The Chicago Inter-Ocean says—"Unceasing action is the word for this novel. From the first to the last page there is adventure."

OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, by Albert Dorrington and A. G. Stephens

A story of the Far East. The Grand Rapids Herald says of the book—"'Our Lady of Darkness' is entitled to be classed with 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' It is one of the greatest stories of mystery and deep-laid plot and its masterly handling must place it in the front rank of modern fiction."

THE DUPLICATE DEATH, by A. C. Fox-Davies

A first-rate detective story—one that will keep you thrilled to the very end. The New York Tribune's verdict on the book is this—"We need only commend it as a puzzling and readable addition to the fiction of crime."

THE DANGEROUS AGE, by Karin Michaelis

Here is a woman's soul laid bare with absolute frankness. Europe went mad about the book, which has been translated into twelve languages. It betrays the freemasonry of womanhood.

MY ACTOR HUSBAND, Anonymous

The reader will be startled by the amazing truths set forth and, the completeness of their revelations. Life behind the scenes is stripped bare of all its glamor. Young women whom the stage attracts should read this story. There is a ringing damnation in it.

MRS. DRUMMOND'S VOCATION, by Mark Ryce

Lily Drummond is an unmoral (not immoral) heroine. She was not a bad girl at heart; but when chance opened up for her the view of a life she had never known or dreamed of, her absence of moral responsibility did the rest.

DOWNWARD: "A Slice of Life," by Maud Churton Braby

Author of "Modern Marriage and How to Bear It."

"'Downward' belongs to that great modern school of fiction built upon woman's downfall. * * * I cordially commend this bit of fiction to the thousands of young women who are yearning to see what they call life.'"—James L. Ford in the N. Y. Herald.

TWO APACHES OF PARIS, by Alice and Claude Askew

Authors of "The Shulamite," "The Rod of Justice," etc.

All primal struggles originate with the daughters of Eve.

This story of Paris and London tells of the wild, fierce life of the flesh, of a woman with the beauty of consummate vice to whom a man gave himself, body and soul.

THE VISITS OF ELIZABETH, by Elinor Glyn

One of Mrs. Glyn's biggest successes. Elizabeth is a charming young woman who is always saying and doing droll and, daring things, both shocking and amusing.

BEYOND THE ROCKS, by Elinor Glyn

"One of Mrs. Glyn's highly sensational and somewhat erotic novels."—Boston Transcript.

The scenes are laid in Paris and London; and a country-house party also figures, affording the author some daring situations, which she has handled deftly.

THE REFLECTIONS OF AMBROSINE, by Elinor Glyn

The story of the awakening of a young girl, whose maidenly emotions are set forth as Elinor Glyn alone knows how.

"Gratitude and, power and self-control! * * * in nature I find there is a stronger force than all these things, and that is the touch of the one we love."—Ambrosine.

THE VICISSITUDES OF EVANGELINE, by Elinor Glyn

"One of Mrs. Glyn's most pungent tales of feminine idiosyncracy and caprice."—Boston Transcript,

Evangeline is a delightful heroine with glorious red hair and amazing eyes that looked a thousand unsaid challenges.

DAYBREAK: a Prologue to "Three Weeks"

"Daybreak" is a prologue to "Three Weeks" and forms the first of the series, although published last. It is a highly interesting account of a love episode that took place during the youth of the famous Queen of "Three Weeks."

A story of the Balkans, this is one of the timely novels of the year.

ONE DAY: a Sequel to "Three Weeks"

"There is a note of sincerity in this book that is lacking in the first."—Boston Globe.

"One Day" is the sequel you have been waiting for since reading "Three Weeks," and is a story which points a moral, a clear, well-written exposition of the doctrine, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

HIGH NOON: a New Sequel to "Three Weeks" A Modern Romeo and Juliet

A powerful, stirring love-story of twenty years after. Abounding in beautiful descriptions and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl will instantly appeal to the million and a quarter people who have read and enjoyed "Three Weeks."

THE DIARY OF MY HONEYMOON

A woman who sets out to unburden her soul upon intimate things is bound to touch upon happenings which are seldom the subject of writing at all; but whatever may be said of the views of the anonymous author, the "Diary" is a work of throbbing and intense humanity, the moral of which is sound throughout and plain to see.

THE INDISCRETION OF LADY USHER: a Sequel to "The Diary of My Honeymoon"

"Another purpose novel dealing with the question of marriage and dealing very plainly,—one of the most interesting among the many books on these lines which are at present attracting so much attention."—Cleveland Town Topics.

Price 50 cents per copy; Postage 10 cents extra Order from your Bookseller or from the Publishers

THE MACAULAY COMPANY, 15 West 38th St., New York Send for Illustrated Catalogue

THE END