But time, in its craving for novelties, does not spare even potentates. King George the Fifth soon ceased to occupy the public attention, except in a minor degree. After their curiosity had been satisfied people began to laugh a little at the ceremonies and liveries of a court which existed only by courtesy. When the King went to the theatre the stage box was no longer at his disposal unless he paid for it, and on the opening night at the opera the claims of the family of ex-Senator Baggely, of Idaho, were regarded by the manager as superior to his. His exchequer, too, was low. He was said to be wholly dependent on what Bugbee allowed him. Rumors began to spread regarding the crown jewels. One of the best known hotel-keepers in the city was said to have a mortgage on them. The royal carriage was presently dragged by only one horse. The other, a magnificent bay gelding, was reported to have the distemper, a trifling ailment, which would last but a few days. The animal did not reappear, however, until a reporter discovered it months after among the blooded stock of a New York banker. So it went from bad to worse. Soon the King and his daughter walked upon ordinary occasions, and when they did drive made use of the public stable. A groom in livery on the box beside the driver alone distinguished the equipage. At last one day the King took the Princess Henrietta aside and said:

"My child, we must leave this place. I cannot afford to remain at the Old Province House any longer."

"What! leave the Old Province House, the residence of the colonial governors?" cried the Princess, who had picturesque and sentimental notions despite her portly appearance. "It is renouncing the last prestige of royalty. Oh, I hope your Majesty will not persevere in this determination."

The King shook his head mournfully. "Our present apartments are too expensive. Besides, I have—eh—eh—advantageous proposals from the proprietor of a South End establishment, who desires to improve the tone of his hotel and neighborhood. I think if I accede to them we may be able to have our carriage again."

"Oh, father, it is better to be poor and preserve our self-respect."

King George took a pinch of snuff and sighed meditatively. "It will be only for a little while. My party will soon restore me to the throne of England." He paused, and his voice trembled. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his watery eyes, which were blinking worse than usual. "If we do not move, Henrietta, I cannot see how we shall be able to pay the rent. You know I only have what Bugbee allows me."

"Oh, my poor father," cried the Princess, and she flung her arms lovingly about his neck, "has it come to this? I cannot bear to see you in such distress. Let me earn something for our support. I have been idle long enough. I could be a good governess, I think, with my knowledge of modern languages. Very possibly, the Waitstill C. Hancocks would engage me to teach their children. They have been very friendly, you know."

"No, no, Henrietta, I will hear nothing of the kind. What! a Princess of the House of Hanover go out to service! This is the final stroke!" He repulsed her with indignation.

"But, your Majesty, consider. If I do not do something we shall starve."

"Not if we accept the terms to which I have alluded," said the King, mysteriously.

"Do you mean, your Majesty, that you have sold yourself?" asked the Princess. For an instant a suspicion passed through her mind, which she dismissed straightway. There were those about the court who declared the monarch was a miser and had a fortune hidden away in his strong box.

"It is merely a case of fair exchange," replied King George, doggedly. "The fellow wants to raise the character of his house. He will give me lodging in return for my patronage. I do not see anything out of the way in that."

"Oh, father! I will not be a party to such a degradation," burst out Henrietta, and she began to cry.

In the end, however, the royal exodus to the South End took place, and a new era of prosperity dawned upon the House of Hanover. By his arrangement with his new landlord, the King was enabled to keep up a more imposing state. He bought fresh liveries for his retainers and refitted his carriage. There was a report that he had made money in a grain corner. His anxious expression wore away, and he gained flesh. The public took little interest in him, to be sure; but among fashionable people he was a great favorite. The coupes of the rich trundled over the pavements to his retreat at the St. James Hotel. The Court of St. James, it was called, with an obvious but happy pertinency. The King passed his day at the whist-table in the swell West End Club. He dined out frequently, and was a familiar figure at large entertainments. The Honorable Waitstill C. Hancock always treated him at his receptions (which were among the most elegant of their kind) with marked deference. It must have been very gratifying to the exiled monarch to note the courtly tone in which his host remarked, "Your Majesty, will you take Mrs. Hancock in to supper?"

Time passed, and one day the city awoke to hear that the King had gone off on a fishing trip to Florida. A splendidly furnished steam yacht, large enough, if needs were, for ocean travel, had come into the harbor in the evening, and sailed away the following morning with the royal exile on board. The Princess Henrietta had remained behind. There were rumors in circulation which tended to discredit the truth of the alleged destination of the yacht. Mariners from the docks declared her to be equipped for fighting. People remembered, too, that the King during the past few weeks had been seen to handle larger sums of money than was his wont. He had made purchases of army apparel and several silver-mounted revolvers.

A few weeks later the news of the insurrection at Aldershot and its suppression were flashed over the cable. The King, so the subsequent despatches said, was supposed to be concealed in London, and a large reward had been offered for his apprehension. The good people of Boston were somewhat surprised, therefore, one morning to hear that the incoming steamer from England had a royal freight. When the King was asked what luck he had had in fishing, he blinked his watery eyes and answered, mysteriously, "You will know presently." This was his reply to the friends who met him as he walked down the plank of the vessel. A moment after all eyes were directed to the beautiful woman who emerged from the cabin and entered the carriage with the ex-sovereign. All doubt of her identity was removed when the Court Circular of the following morning announced the arrival of Mrs. Oswald Carey. Apartments had been engaged for her contiguous to those occupied by his Majesty.

One evening, about four weeks subsequent to the return of the royal party, the King was disturbed by the entrance of the Princess Henrietta into his cabinet de travail. He was engaged in footing up his gains and losses at whist during the week, and the interruption caused him to glower slightly at his daughter. But she was far too excited to observe his manner.

"Father," she said abruptly, "I can endure it no longer."

"Endure what, your Royal Highness?"

"The presence of that woman. Either she must leave the court or I will." The eyes of the Princess flashed angrily.

"I am at a loss as to your meaning, Henrietta. Do you refer to the Lady Muriel Howard?"

"You know that I do not. There can be only one to whom such language is applicable. Mrs. Carey is not a proper person to remain at court."

The King scratched his chin thoughtfully. "What has she done?"

"Done, father? Is not her reputation in the past evil enough to disqualify her for the society of your daughter?"

"You have been misinformed, Princess. Mrs. Carey is a long-suffering and much-abused woman. I do not speak at random. I know her intimately."

"So I am given to understand," replied the daughter, with bitterness. "Lady Constance Percy inquired this morning if her Majesty was well."

"You do not choose your ladies in waiting with discretion. Mrs. Oswald Carey has a husband whose existence shows at once the absurdity of your disagreeable and unfilial suspicion. I have no purpose, Henrietta, to take another consort." The King wiped his eyes with a gentle melancholy.

"And you will send her away, will you not, father? I do not wish to be disrespectful, but I cannot endure her presence."

"Send who away?"

"Mrs. Oswald Carey."

"She amuses me, child. Her great beauty is delightful to gaze at." King George put a lozenge into his mouth and sighed reflectively. He was a victim to asthma. The east winds of Boston cut him to the bone.

"Do not compel me, your Majesty, to be more explicit. I repeat, either this woman or I must leave your court."

The late ruler of England wrung his hands. "I see you are resolved to drive me to distraction. This is the final stroke. My daughter wishes to desert me. Lear," he added, piteously, "was only a touch to me. You are Goneril and Regan combined in one."

He scowled angrily at her. Just then the door was opened, and a gentleman of the bedchamber announced that dinner was served.

"Is the court in waiting?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

"This is my birthday," observed the King, moodily.

"So it is," cried Henrietta; "how remiss of me not to have spoken of it."

But her father paid no attention to her words. He was fumbling in his pocket. "How many will there be at table?" he inquired of the equerry.

"Fourteen, Sire."

"Humph! Lady Constance Percy and Lady Rosamond Temple do not drink champagne. Neither does Paran Paget. Lord Gladstone Churchill swore off yesterday." He spoke as if soliloquizing, and went through a process of calculation on the fingers of one hand. He handed a key to his retainer.

"Tell the Lord Chamberlain to have two quarts and one pint," he said. "And Lady Muriel Howard is on no consideration to have more than a single glass. Come, Henrietta."

Dinner was always served for the royal party in the main dining-hall of the hotel. The large table in the middle of the room was reserved for them. First appeared the master of the household bearing the wand of office. The King came next, followed by the Princess and her three Maids of Honor, Lady Constance Percy, Lady Rosamond Temple, and Lady Muriel Howard, all alike duennas of a certain age. The first named were sober, prim-looking persons, but Lady Muriel Howard, who wore low-neck, corkscrew curls, and carried an enormous fan, ogled the various occupants of the dining-room through her eyeglass as she advanced. The remainder of the retinue included the Duke of Wellington, an old nobleman of threescore and ten, and a half-dozen lesser peers, nearly all of whom were on the shady side of sixty. Lord Gladstone Churchill, Paran Paget, and Sir Humphry Davy, who were always in attendance on the person of the sovereign, were the only youthful spirits. It was the former of these who had furnished the romantic story of Mrs. Carey's early life to the society lady. As the royal party walked to their table a few guests of the hotel rose and remained standing until the King had signified by a glance that all should be seated.

The royal bill of fare was distinct from the table d'hote. The proprietor of the house allowed under his contract with the King a certain sum daily for the cuisine. The King was entitled to save anything he could on that amount. To-day there was a boiled dinner. Boiled chickens at one end of the table and boiled corned beef at the other followed the soup.

"How good an entree would taste," whispered Lord Cecil Manners to the Earl of Kildare, casting a glance at a neighboring table, where a vol-au-vent of sweetbreads was being passed by the servant.

"What was that you said, Lord Cecil?" asked the King, sharply.

"I was calling his lordship's attention to the champagne glasses," answered the peer, with a silly giggle.

"It is my birthday," explained the King. "You shall drink my health later on in the repast."

There was a flutter of congratulation around the table.

"How indecorous of me not to have remembered," said the Duke of Wellington, with old-fashioned courtesy.

"Many happy returns of the day," said Lady Muriel Howard, and she whisked her handkerchief coquettishly at her sovereign.

King George presided at one end of the table, and the Princess Henrietta at the other. The nobility were seated according to their rank. Lady Muriel Howard being the eldest daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, the first peer of the realm, sat on the King's right, and the Duke of Wellington in the seat of honor by the Princess. Midway down the table was a vacant chair, and it was noticed that the King glanced frequently with an air of impatience toward the door in the intervals of the carving. He preferred to carve the dinner himself. Two servants waited upon the company.

"His Majesty is out of sorts to day. He has given me only drumsticks," murmured Lady Muriel to the companion on her other side.

"Where is Mrs. Oswald Carey?" asked the monarch at last.

"Here she comes, your Majesty," said Lady Constance Percy, nodding toward the entrance.

Mrs. Carey, in a superb black velvet costume, cut square in front, with a Maltese cross of brilliants resting upon her bosom, swept grandly across the dining hall. She held a small bunch of flowers in her hand. The head waiter of the hotel, bowing almost to the ground, waved her toward the royal table. Everybody in the room paused to gaze at the superb beauty. The master of the household drew back her chair, but she did not stop until she reached the King.

"Sire," she said, with a profound courtesy, "pardon my tardiness, and accept, if you will, these roses in commemoration of your birthday."

The King looked delighted. "Yes, it is my birthday," he answered. "I was afraid you would come too late for the champagne."

Mrs. Carey was about to retire to her seat when the King exclaimed, "Lady Muriel, if it's all the same, I'll get you to change seats with Mrs. Carey. Am I not your sovereign?" he inquired, noticing the glum looks of the outraged maid of honor.

All through the rest of the meal Mrs. Carey and the King whispered together. "I have taken a great liberty," said she at last.

"And what is that? The only liberty that I should object to your taking would be taking yourself away."

"I have invited a party of friends to your drawing-room to-night. I had promised a sweet girl, who seems to have taken an interest in me, to chaperone a theatre party, and she is going to bring her guests here instead. Does this inconvenience your Majesty?"

"Nothing that you could do would inconvenience me," and he gurgled as he drank his champagne.

"She plays her cards well, n'est-ce pas," said Lady Muriel to her new neighbor, Lord Gladstone Churchill.

King George caught her saturnine expression. He turned to the master of the household at his elbow. "Did I not order that Lady Muriel Howard should have only one glass of wine?"

"She insisted on more, your Majesty," groaned the major-domo.

"Am I not King?" said the monarch, and he pounded on the table so that the glasses rang.

This incident attracted every one's attention. Conversation flagged, and presently the Princess gave the signal for rising from the table. The ladies went out in advance, each turning as she left her seat and making a low courtesy to the King. Mrs. Carey was the last in the procession. As she passed through the door, her glance fell full on a man standing a little to one side, and gazing at her intently. She faltered, but only for an instant.

"Why, Mr. Jawkins, when did you arrive? Welcome to court," she cried in a cordial, conciliatory tone, holding out her hand.

Jawkins bowed stiffly, not seeming to see Mrs. Carey's hand. "Yes, I am come," he answered, "but small thanks to you, madam."

Dissimulation was not one of Jawkins's accomplishments.

"This is no place for a scene," she said, in a low tone. "If you wish an interview with me there will be an opportunity later. The drawing-room begins at ten. You will see me there." She smiled and showed her teeth ravishingly, despite the serious purport of her words.

"It is the King I wish to see, Mrs. Carey, not you," Jawkins replied significantly.

"Ah, indeed?" said the beauty, and she followed the Princess up the staircase.

The rest of the royal party remained only a few minutes in the dining-room. The King enjoyed a stroll through the corridor after dinner. He liked to chat with the habitues of the hotel and watch the billiard-players. To-night the Duke of Wellington and young Paget were in special attendance.

The King stepped up to the cigar counter. "Something mild and not too expensive," said he.

The attendant indicated several brands for his selection.

"Three for a quarter?" asked the ex-ruler, as he picked up three ten-cent cigars.

The man nodded, and the King, having presented a cigar to each of his companions, lit his own. His eye presently fell upon a pile of trunks, all of the latest and most improved manufacture, and marked with the letters "J. J." "A new arrival, I see," he said to a denizen of the hotel who knew everybody, and who derived pleasure from the prestige of conversing with royalty.

"Yes, your Majesty. A—a—a subject of yours, if I mistake not. He signs himself 'Jarley Jawkins, London.' Will your Majesty honor me with a light?"

"Jarley Jawkins!" cried the King. "It must be the individual caterer of whose wealth we have heard so much. His attentions to my friends during the interregnum deserve recognition. Several of them have been saved from absolute want by his generosity."

"That is the gentleman," whispered the other, indicating Jawkins, who was smoking in apparent unconsciousness and watching a game of pool. "I saw him just now talking with the famous beauty, Mrs. Oswald Carey."

"With Mrs. Carey?" exclaimed the King. "I have never heard her speak of him." The incident disturbed him little. He was too much absorbed by the idea of Jawkins's wealth. He hoped to be able to borrow some money from him. He turned to Paget and charged him to see that Jawkins was invited to the drawing-room that evening.

Meanwhile Mrs. Carey had retired to her own chamber, which she was pacing in some perturbation of spirit. The presence of Jawkins was a veritable spectre at the feast. The expression of his face haunted her. She felt certain that he meant mischief. What was it he purposed to do? He had asked to see the King. Probably he had discovered that it was she who betrayed the conspiracy to the government, and was determined to revenge himself by exposing her. She smiled at the thought, and the picture rose before her of the monarch pouring out protestations of love at her feet on the night when that band of gallant gentlemen were laying down their lives at Aldershot to restore his throne. If this was all that Jawkins had wherewith to prejudice her with the King, she need not fear the astute manager. But she could not feel wholly free from dread. She was aware that Jarley Jawkins was not a man to be trifled with.

She went down to the parlor where the royal reception was to be held, so as to be in time to receive her own guests. It was early, and no one had yet arrived. The windows were open in order to cool the atmosphere. The floor had been covered with white linen drugget. At one end of the room, on a dais, stood a throne. A grand piano was in a corner. A colored waiter put his head inside the door, and, announcing that the musicians had arrived, inquired if they were to tune up at once.

"You must see the Lord Chamberlain," answered Mrs. Carey. She felt sad this evening, and the tawdry character of this entertainment was contrasted in her mind with the traditions of drawing-rooms at Buckingham Palace.

A cornet-player, a fiddler, and a female pianist entered, and the squeak of their instruments in process of reconstruction soon jarred upon her nerves. She started to leave the room, but encountered the Princess Henrietta and her maids of honor at the door, who each regarded her with a haughty look. One or two peers were loitering in the corridor putting on their gloves. At its further end a group of chambermaids were ensconced to view the arrivals. The musicians struck up "Rule Britannia," and Mrs. Carey, looking back, saw that the ladies had seated themselves. The reception was about to begin. She joined the others, and the nobility speedily arrived. Before many minutes the King appeared, attended by the Lord Chamberlain, a fuzzy little man in red stockings and pumps, and mounted the throne.

"God save George the Fifth, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, Sultan of Egypt, and Defender of the Faith," cried the Lord Chamberlain, and the drawing-room began. It was the Chamberlain's duty to present to the sovereign each person who had never been at court before. Invitations had been sent to all Englishmen in the city and to certain carefully selected Americans. The guests began to arrive rapidly, and in half an hour the apartment was filled. All the English people wore regular court costume, but the strangers were permitted, as a special favor, to appear in ordinary evening dress. The duty of introducing the Americans devolved upon the proprietor of the hotel.

Mrs. Carey kept on the lookout for her friends. About 10.30 and an instant, among the names announced, she heard "Mr. Abraham Windsor, Miss Windsor." It was as if she had received an electric shock. She had neglected to inquire who were to compose the party. For an instant she was too surprised to think, then she looked and saw the King talking with evident admiration to her pretty rival. Her hate returned, and with it the wound of her despised love bled afresh. Stepping forward, she said in her most congratulatory tones, "How charming! we meet again, Miss Windsor, but under different circumstances." There was a suppressed triumph in her tone. The young girl had to take the proffered hand, but it was plain enough to Mrs. Carey that if Maggie had known whom she was to encounter at court the meeting would never have taken place. Their eyes met, and in those of the American there was scorn and pride. "How do you do, Mrs. Carey," was all she said.

Her father came to Maggie's rescue. "Why, Mrs. Carey, your most obedient! This is like old times," and he proceeded to monopolize the beauty.

"Isn't she entrancing!" whispered the aesthetic maiden, Mrs. Carey's friend, in Miss Windsor's ear.

"I have met her before," she said, quietly.

"Have you! Oh, in England, of course."

But Maggie did not heed her words. The noise of voices at the door attracted her attention. The crowd was giving way before the wand of the Lord Chamberlain, and it was evident from the commotion that something unusual was about to take place. She looked and saw two men advance with eager step and fall on bended knee at the foot of the throne amid a buzz of excitement.

"My Sovereign and my King," they cried together.

"Rise, Duke, rise," said George the Fifth, wiping with genuine emotion his watery eyes, and he stepped down to clasp the hands of an old man with a bald head, whom Maggie recognized to be the Duke of Bayswater.

"Rise, Featherstone, rise," said the King to the other.

"Most Gracious Sovereign, I kiss your hand." Featherstone it was, and he pressed his lips against the knuckles of the sometime King; but the words were spoken coldly, like words of duty. Lost in amazement at this unusual scene, Miss Windsor had failed to observe a young man follow soberly and even sadly in the footsteps of the other two and stand aloof, though expectantly. Her eyes and those of the King must have fallen upon him almost at the same moment. The heart in her bosom leapt wildly. Pale and worn as he was, she recognized Geoffrey Ripon.

"Lord Brompton!" exclaimed the King, and he grew confused, for the peer did not kneel as the others had done. "Lord Brompton, I am glad to see you," and he remounted the throne.

"Sire, I have come to bring you a legacy from John Dacre," said Ripon, and he drew from his breast as he spoke a smoke-stained and tattered piece of the royal banner and laid it at the foot of the throne. "This is from Aldershot, sir."

A murmur spread through the room, and the color mounted to the King's face. "Sirrah, I do not understand you. I am your King."

"As for myself," said Geoffrey, without regarding the monarch's frown, "I return this, which my ancestor more than a century ago first unsheathed in fealty to the House of Hanover." He took from its scabbard the sword with which Maggie had girded him that day when he courted her in the haunted chamber of Ripon House, and snapped the blade in twain. He flung the pieces on the ground and turned to leave the room. At the first step he encountered the glance of the woman he loved bent upon him with an expression in which pride and tenderness were strangely intermingled. He bowed low to her, and was gone.



CHAPTER XVIII.

TWO CARDS PLAYED.

The morning following the scene with Ripon, his Majesty was in an ill-temper. The events of the evening were not pleasant to remember; then the King had lost largely at poker, and had passed a sleepless night. Mrs. Carey had sent word that she had not recovered from her fainting fit, and was not yet visible. Old Bugbee's promised remittance had not arrived. And the entire court joined in what seemed a deliberate effort to make things generally disagreeable. The pages who were on duty at the royal toilet came in for some bad moments; and young Lord Gladstone Churchill privately confided to Paran Paget that he had never seen the old man in such a devil of a wax.

It seemed to the King that times had sadly changed from the regency of his grandfather. Nobody had ever ventured to argue with him about the desirability of the company he chose to keep. But now Wellington, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Archbishop of Canterbury had as much as told King George that he must break with Mrs. Carey. It was hard if he couldn't have his own way even in the little court at the South End. True, the papers had been full of Mrs. Carey these three months—the last Sunday Globe had contained a grand plan of her own and the royal apartments, and the Advertiser of the following day had printed, without apparent reason, an editorial upon Mademoiselle de la Valliere. But the King considered it highly impertinent of American journals to make any personal comment whatever upon majesty, and had almost burst a blood-vessel when approached soon after his arrival by an interviewer from the New York Herald.

Still, there was one ugly fact remaining—Mrs. Carey's fainting fit. What could have frightened her into that? Not Lord Brompton, with all his rhodomontade—the King liked to call it rhodomontade; it soothed a certain uneasy feeling he had had at times about his own part in the affair. Brompton was ardent enough, but he was not well balanced; he was impracticable; he did not properly sense the feeling of the times, but was eager to force an opportunity. Well, well—where was Mrs. Carey? It was audience time, and he meant to have her receive, with the ladies in waiting. He rang the bell, and a page entered with a card. The King looked at it, surprised; the card was something between an ordinary visiting card and a tradesman's circular:

_______ [COAT OF ARMS.] JARLEY JAWKINS, MASTER OF SOCIAL CEREMONIES and PURVEYOR OF GUESTS TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING. -

The King threw himself upon the throne—it was a fine old carved oak chair, one which had come over in the Mayflower—and waited.

Jawkins entered, bowing low. It was the first time he had ever met his Majesty face to face. As he slowly approached the throne his knees bent at their hinges, until with the last step they touched the floor with a heavy thud (Jawkins was a portly little man) as he kissed the royal hand that was kindly extended. When he rose, which was with considerable difficulty, he backed slowly away. As he saw no chair and did not dare to turn around, there was nothing for it but to continue backing; which he did, until he brought up with a crash against a large photograph of Niagara that was hanging on the wall of the chamber. Here he stood looking at the King, but hardly within speaking distance.

"Mr. Jawkins, I believe?"

"Sir, yes," said Jawkins, who did not like to say "Yes, sir," as being too colloquial.

"We have often heard of you, Jawkins, and favorably," the monarch went on. "I understand that several of our poorer gentlemen are indebted to your exertions for their—ahem—pocket money."

Jawkins smiled. "Well, sir, I flatter myself I have been the discoverer of retiring talent to some extent. But the money obligation is mutual, sir—mutual." And Jawkins so far forgot himself as to slap his pockets.

"Dear me," said George the Fifth, "dear me. You must be very rich. Is—is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Jawkins?"

Jawkins's manner suddenly changed, and he became again the serious man of affairs. "Yes, your Majesty—there is something I wish to—to suggest—merely suggest to your Majesty." The King was silent, and Jawkins wiped his bald head with a handkerchief. His small head, ordinarily of the shape and color of a ripe cherry, took a still deeper red as he stammered for words with which to proceed. Finally he spoke; humbly, in a manner almost servile, but fixed and cool.

"I have—to beg your Majesty—to consider—the propriety—of keeping Mrs. Oswald Carey at court."

The King stared stonily at Jawkins, who cowered close to the wall, but went on.

"After what happened at Aldershot?"

"Aldershot!"

Jawkins saw that he had arrested the King's attention, and went on, hurriedly. "The day was lost at Aldershot almost without a blow. It was because the enemy were prepared on all sides. They had known of the planned rising for days. They were armed and ready at all points. All the disaffected regiments were marched away, and with them many of the officers who were in the plot. The whole force of the government was at or around Aldershot that day. The fleet was in the river. Worst of all, the secret of the conspiracy was carefully circulated among all the officers on whom they could rely, with instructions to prepare their men, even to sound them in advance. And it was Mrs. Carey herself who carried the information to the government."

"Impossible." The King made as if to rise.

"One moment more, your Majesty—just a moment. I knew all this almost at the time. Mrs. Carey was staying at a country house in one of my parties when she met the leaders of the noble attempt. It was she who bore to Bagshaw the written evidence upon which Sir John Dacre was shot, and the others condemned to prison. Think but for one moment, your Majesty, the day might still perhaps have been gained at Aldershot, but for one thing—the King did not appear. Consider, sir. Who was it who prevented your Majesty from going to Aldershot that day?"

Jawkins heard the King mutter a curse to himself. He hastened to complete his victory, and pulling out a sealed document, unrolled it, and handed it to the King. It was the reappointment, signed by Bagshaw, of Oswald Carey to the Stamp and Sealing-Wax Office.

"This, your Majesty, was handed to me by President Bagshaw himself, to give to Mrs. Carey, as his private agent."

King George looked over it hastily, and then rising, paced nervously up and down the room. Jawkins kept silence.

After some minutes the King stopped in his walk. "Well—if this be true—Mrs. Carey is an agreeable woman. Suppose I chose, without trusting her, to permit her company—"

The King interrupted himself for a moment, as he caught Jawkins's eye. Then he resumed his walk hastily. "Yes, yes," he concluded, "I suppose you are right."

Jawkins looked carefully around the room, and then continued in a lower voice, "Does your Majesty know—what they say at court—that Mrs. Carey wishes to be the King's—" George stopped him with a look.

"Yes, yes—I know all that."

"The American divorce laws are very lax, they say," Jawkins went on, "and if the King were to marry her—"

"Marry her!" thundered the King; "God, man, what do you mean?"

"If I proved to your Majesty that such was her aim?"

"She should leave the court this instant."

"Will your Majesty permit me to send for her?"

Jawkins rang the bell for a messenger.

While this scene was going on between Jawkins and the King, the fair subject of their discussion was differently engaged. She, too, had passed a sleepless night. The sight of Geoffrey Ripon again had won upon her strangely, and his unworldly speech had struck some chord in the depths of her own heart now long unused. There is no greater error than to suppose the evil beings of this world all one consistent evil—that would be to be perfect, as Lucifer, the father of lies, alone is perfect. Every life is but a sum of actions, and in every action the good and evil motives are most nicely balanced at the best. A slight preponderance of evil or even some exaggerated habit of mind—a little over-development of pride, of ambition, of passion, a too accented doubt and an overcold analysis—suffices to throw the decision on the wrong side of every case, so that the outward life appears, perhaps, one consistent darkness and wrong. But no one knows how near at every step the noble impulse came to winning.

As Eleanor Carey strained her beautiful eyes in wakeful memories that night, the one memory that remained to her was Geoffrey Ripon. When she forced herself to close them, and tried to dream, the one dream was the dream of Geoffrey dying for his friend and laying his broken sword at the feet of his King. When she tried to think of his picture, the one picture she could bear to look upon was Geoffrey Ripon. It had come to this. All the scheming and the passion of the world, and the hard ambition, the cold, worldly will that lifted her almost to a seat upon the throne—they brought her so far and left her at the feet of her old lover. This was all.

When Mrs. Carey rose her mind was made up—this time shall we call it for good or evil? Evil, yes; but not the same evil as yesterday's, nor the evil of to-morrow. Her headache was feigned. Leaving this answer with her maid to any inquiries, she stepped out in the early morning into the streets. It was not hard for her to find out Geoffrey's hotel. It was a lovely morning in April, before the east wind had sprung up from the sea, and as she passed through the gardens the crocuses and the little blue flowers looked up to her as if they smiled—as if they, too, remembered other days. Mrs. Carey drew her veil about her face and walked the faster.

Geoffrey had got up that morning as one who arises in a world that is void. His mission to see the King was ended; now there was nothing left. He owed to Margaret Windsor his liberty; with that gift she had richly given all that his friendship could claim. And at the time she had nobly told him, frankly, kindly, like a true American woman, that here it all must end. She was to be married; and he, Geoffrey Ripon, was left—free. But he loved her still; he loved her, and there was no hope in it. What, then, was left to him? As he bitterly asked the question aloud, some one opened the door of his room. Mrs. Oswald Carey entered.

"Mrs. Carey!"

"Geoffrey!"

Both were silent, and each stood looking at the other. Never had she been more beautiful than then. Her old self-possession had gone; there was a feminine weakness in her attitude, or quiver of the limbs, a heaving of the breast that made her seem different from the Mrs. Carey of late years, and beneath the long, trembling lashes he saw her eyes glorious with the glamour as of youth, tenfold more potent. For a long time, it seemed, he stood looking at her. At last her strength seemed to give way, and sinking into a chair she took his hand and kissed it. Then Geoffrey broke from her.

"This is no place for you," he said, coldly.

"Geoffrey, I have come to tell you again how I loved you. I ought never to have left you. You will not cast me off from you now?" She spoke pleadingly, and stretched out one white arm as if to draw him to her. "The American girl whom you thought you loved is married. We have only each other, Geoffrey, now. You know you loved me once." She rose to her full height, and looked deep into his eyes, her own on a level with his. "See," she faltered, "I leave a king for you." And she drew forth a little miniature of George the Fifth and flung it on the floor at his feet.

If Geoffrey had ever hesitated, it was not now, though Maggie Windsor was lost to him, and then she had loved him. That was in the old, weak days of his, before Dacre's death. "If Maggie Windsor is married, God bless her!" he replied, simply. Then, walking to the door, he rang the bell.

Mrs. Carey fell back upon the chair crying. Geoffrey left the room. A minute after he had gone she rose, and drying her tears, went to the entrance of the hotel, where she called a carriage and drove back to the Court of St. James. She went directly into the King's anterooms. No one was there but Jawkins.

"Ah, Mrs. Carey—just in time to remind you of our little compact," said he. As she looked at him, he stood, smiling grossly, vulgar, sensual, mean. All the years of her debasement came to her memory with a new sting to her wounded pride, and she swept on, ignoring him.

"Come, come, Eleanor—among old friends, this won't do, you know. Give me your hand. Let's see—what's the price to kiss it now? It used to cost five shillings." And Jawkins imprinted an attempted kiss, clumsily, upon the palm of the hand. "When do you leave the court? They don't like you here overmuch, I fancy. But you've been well advertised."

Mrs. Carey lost control of herself for the first time that day.

"How dare you speak thus to me? I, who was—who am your—"

"Oswald Carey's wife," Jawkins spoke contemptuously.

"Your King's wife!" cried Mrs. Carey. Jawkins laughed and threw back a curtain. Behind it stood the King. He did not look at her, but waved her from him with his hand. She looked at him a minute or two, but then left the room. As the door closed behind her the King looked up.

"Well, Jawkins, it's done."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"She was a devilish fine woman." Jawkins started to go.

"Stay, Jawkins, a moment. Ah! you told me you had made a good mint out of—Are you in funds over here?"

"Quite, your Majesty."

"Jawkins, my bankers are devilish slow. I wish you could manage to advance me a few thousands or so."



CHAPTER XIX.

A WOMAN'S END.

The great cafe of the Trimountain Hotel is one of those interiors which can only be seen in America. Lit at night by a single electric glow, softened and unified in passing through the ground-glass ceiling, it is brilliant with mirrors and cut-glass and china. At one end of the room is the long bar, glittering with all that can make a bar attractive, served by a score or more of the prettiest of bar-maids; along the sides of the room are rows of little tables in carved oak and cherry, each unlike the other, each a work of art; in the corners and upon the walls is a collection of paintings and statuary hardly rivalled in any of the private mansions of Boston. The centre of the room, save for a fountain playing in a jungle of flowering vines, violets, and rare orchids, is a polished expanse of inlaid floor, where one may walk and smoke.

As Geoffrey walked in he passed the news-stand by the door. Here are shown the photographs of the favorites or celebrities of the day, etchings of the latest pictures, play-bills of the theatres and operas, pictures of women and horses. Everywhere about that day he was met by the semblance of the woman he had just seen; photographs in every size and attitude, in every dress, colored, plain; taken in street dress, in house dress, in dinner dress, in robe de chambre, full length and half length, high-necked, low-necked, very low-necked; on the handkerchief boxes and the perfumery cases were still gaudier pictures, with the Carey collar, the Carey perfume, the King's favorite cigarette, and whatever else had any use or service for a pretty woman. Geoffrey noticed all these things as he passed on, but was struck a moment later by the appearance of a man he thought he knew.

The man wore the dress of a gentleman, but travel-stained and untidy; he was sitting alone at one of the little tables, with head bowed down upon his breast; before him stood glasses and a crystal decanter half filled with brandy. Geoffrey started with surprise, and would have turned back, but the man saw him and recognized him. It was Oswald Carey.

The two men looked at each other a minute without speaking. Finally Carey spoke, in a hoarse voice, not his own of older days:

"Have you seen my wife?"

Geoffrey started, less at the question than at the manner in which it was asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Where is she? At the palace—at the court?"

"Yes."

"Damn her," said Carey.

Geoffrey was silent.

"Where did you see her last?" muttered the other.

"Here—in this hotel."

"In this hotel?"

"This morning."

"Is she—is she not with the King?"

"I believe—I do not know," answered Geoffrey. He turned to go. As he looked at the other, standing there, white-faced, worn, with the glitter in his reddened eyes, this man whom he had scorned, there was something in him like the ruin of a man after all. Geoffrey, too, was alone, and his heart warmed to him. It was he who had married Eleanor Leigh, not Geoffrey. "Carey," said he, "you can do nothing here. I am going to the West. Come with me."

Carey looked at Ripon, puzzled; then, with a broken sob, he grasped his hand and staggered to his seat. Ripon noticed for the first time that the man was crazy with drink.

"Thank you," said he. "I must stay. I have something to do here first. You know that she betrayed you? that it was her treason condemned you and Dacre?"

Geoffrey nodded.

"And you, Ripon"—Carey pulled the other close to his lips and spoke almost in a whisper—"you are the only man that woman ever loved. I know it."

Geoffrey could make no answer. Again he rose to go.

"Where are you going?"

Geoffrey smiled and waved his hand vaguely. "To the West."

"Why?—I thought—you came over in Windsor's yacht—" The other stopped, embarrassed. Geoffrey was touched by his interest.

"Carey, will you give me a glass of your brandy?"

Geoffrey poured it out. "Miss Windsor is married."

"Who told you so?"

"Your wife."

Carey brought his fist down shivering on the table. "And you believe her?"

"Miss Windsor told me almost as much herself."

"Almost!" Carey burst into a wild laugh. "Here's to her!" he cried, holding up his glass. "Ripon, you are the last gentleman who will ever drink with me. I suspect you are the only one who would now. And here's my last toast: Long life to your wife—and death to mine. Damn her! Can't you see she lied?"

Carey rose from the table and staggered out of the room. It was already the afternoon of a garish, shadeless day, and people stopped to look at Carey's terrible pace as he strode along the sidewalk. As Ripon had seen, he was insane with drink, or would have been but for one dominant thought in his mind.

As Carey walked along the busy street, hardly a shop window, not a bookstore, not an ignoble news-stand, but had displayed his wife's picture. It was Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Oswald Carey, Mrs. Carey and the ex-King, everywhere. One infamous pictorial publication had a bare-necked portrait of the "notorious Eleanor Carey" side by side with that of "Jim Dingan, the Lynn pugilist." As he entered Washington Street, the newsboys were crying, "Horrible crime in New York! Scandal in high life! Mrs. Carey leaves the court!" and Carey read the caption outlined on the bulletin boards.

He felt in his coat pocket, where he carried a small revolver he had purchased, and hurried along more rapidly. His gait was quick and firm as an athlete's on the course. No trace of intoxication now.

He reached the St. James and asked a page to be directed to Mrs. Carey's apartment. The boy grinned at first, but was silent at a word from Carey and led him the way. When they reached her door, at the end of a long series of corridors and stairs, the page wished to announce him, but Carey pushed him aside roughly and opened the door. His fingers were clinched upon the pistol in his pocket; his plan was to ask her one question, and then, while she was hesitating about her answer, to kill her.

The drawing-room was a large apartment, vulgarly furnished in a style gone by. A marble clock was on the mantel, and a photograph of the King. Carey pressed through into the bedroom. No one was there. Bits of lace and muslin were scattered about the floor, and one or two garments lying on the chairs as if hastily thrown aside. Carey thoroughly examined the rooms and then turned back to the page.

"Where is Mrs. Carey? Do you know?"

"I do not. I heard that she was about to leave the court."

Carey turned away, and, leaving the hotel, took a carriage and drove to the railway station. A train had just left for New York. At the news-stand was the usual collection of her pictures on sale. Carey spoke to the boy in charge, pointing to a photograph.

"Have you seen that woman go by here to-day?"

"Yes, sir; I see that woman go by here not twenty minutes ago. That's the beauty, Mrs. Carey, that is. There was another woman with her, and a man."

Her maid, probably. But who could the man be? Carey found the next train for New York did not leave till evening. He waited in the station for it, and arrived in that city at midnight. It was too late to get any trace of his wife that night.

Early in the morning he began the search, but it was all of no avail. His wife had apparently stopped at none of the hotels. A certain lady looking like her had been seen at a small hotel on the Fifth Avenue, but she had been with a gentleman, and their names were registered as Mr. and Mrs. Copley Hutchinson, of Boston.

Carey wondered whether she could have left the city. Several European steamers had sailed or were to sail that day, and he spent an hour or two at the docks searching them. All the papers, all the shops, were full of his wife and her movements; he alone knew nothing of them.

As he walked back, up Broadway, he looked at the bulletin boards. He had a habit of doing this now. In front of the Herald office they were changing the bulletin, and he waited a moment to see. The first line on the new broadside he read aloud:

"Mrs. Oswald Carey sails for Brazil."

Carey went in and bought a copy of the newspaper. In it he found the sailing-list of the City of Rio, and there the first name was "Mrs. Oswald Carey and maid," and then, just below, "Jarley Jawkins."

Carey stood on the sidewalk several minutes, like a statue. Then, slowly crumpling up the newspaper in his hand, he threw it in the gutter. That night he was a passenger in the emigrant train for the North-west.



CHAPTER XX.

"FROM CHAIN TO CHAIN."

"Mr. Windsor," said the Duke of Bayswater to his host, as the two were sitting in the library of the latter's house in Boston, "I have received to-day a letter from our poor friend Sydney from my late residence, Dartmoor Prison. It is exceedingly interesting to me."

"Poor fellow," answered Mr. Windsor. "What a pity it was that we could not effect his escape with the rest of you. How does he bear up?"

"Ah! pretty well, pretty well," answered the Duke, rubbing his gold-bowed spectacles with a white silk handkerchief. "But still, I must say that the poor fellow seems very down-hearted. Shall I read you his letter?"

Mr. Windsor bowed assent, and the Duke adjusted his spectacles to his sharp aquiline nose, and read, in faltering tones:

"DARTMOOR PRISON, 198-.

"DEAR DUKE: I was delighted that you all made good escape on that eventful night of the fog. It is foolish to complain of fate, or rather of the life of free living, which made me have a tendency to rheumatic gout. As I sat on the edge of the canal and watched you then, as you suddenly disappeared over the hill, I cursed all French cooks and vintages, and my roystering old grandfather to boot. But I led the guard, who were hot on your scent, a devil's own dance when they found that the lock of the last bridge was filled with pebbles. But I am delighted that you others escaped; I could not bear to imagine you, dear Duke, whose magnificent hospitality I had enjoyed in days gone by, cramped in a narrow cell, or mopping up the corridors of this jail."

The Duke broke down completely as he remembered his life at Dartmoor, and Mr. Windsor looked out of the window to conceal the smile which this picture of his venerable old friend brought to his mind. The Duke, after vigorously rubbing his spectacles and clearing his throat, remarked:

"Excuse my stopping, Mr. Windsor, but poor Sydney's handwriting never was good. I remember I used to tell him, when he answered my invitations, that I should have imagined that a fly dipped in ink had crawled over the paper." He laughed for a moment at his former moss-encrusted and ducal witticism, and continued reading Sydney's letter:

"However, I have become resigned. I was born under an unlucky star, and the uninvited bad fairy at my christening, after the others had given me beauty, riches, and wit, hopped in malevolently upon her crutch and shouted in a disagreeable falsetto: 'He shall have all these, to be sure, but he shall have a poor digestion and the gout!' and whirled away on the evening wind astride her broomstick."

Mr. Windsor laughed out loud; the Duke seemed annoyed at this, and, begging not to be interrupted again, continued his reading in a rather offended tone:

"Since your escape I have been under the strictest surveillance, and as I have recovered from my gout I have been set to work upon the ignoble task of breaking stone into small bits with a hammer. I am known as No. 5, and am called by no other name. Imagine me, who found it so difficult to look out for Number One, having to care for No. 5. Indeed, I should find it well-nigh impossible were it not for the assistance which I have from the warders and turnkeys, who look after me with a touching solicitude. No physician could have kept me to a regimen so suitable for my health as strictly as they. You remember how I used to enjoy lying abed in the morning. What a pleasure it was to wake up, to feel that the busy world was astir around you, and lie half awake, half asleep, stretching your toes into cool recesses of a soft, luxurious bed. But it made me idle, very idle. But now I must be off my hard cot, be dressed and have my cot made up by half-past five; then I breakfast off a piece of bread, washed down with a pint of unsweetened rye coffee innocent of milk, drunk au naturel out of a tin pail. And how I miss my after-breakfast cigar and the Times, as I put my hands upon a fellow-convict's shoulder and march in slow procession to my task. The work of breaking a large piece of stone into smaller bits with a hammer is not an intellectual one; but it has got me into tolerable training; I have lost twenty pounds already, and am, as we used to say at the university, as 'hard as nails.' I am afraid that my old trousers, which my tailor used to let out year by year, would be a world too large for my shrunk shanks now. I dine at noon, as you remember, and for the first time in my life I do not dress for dinner; indeed, a white cravat and a dress coat would be inappropriate, when one sits down to bean porridge and boiled beef served in the same tin plate. But I have a good appetite after my pulverizing of the morning, and I am not compelled to set the table in a roar under duress. I am surprised what good things I think of now that I am not expected to and have no one to whom to say them. Jawkins would double my salary could he get me out. Rye coffee is a poor substitute for Chambertin, but it does not aggravate my gout. After dinner I return to my stone-breaking, and feel with delight my growing biceps muscle, and after my supper, which is monotonously like my breakfast, I tackle the tracts, which are left with me by kindly souls. They are of a class of literature which I have neglected since childhood, having, as you may remember, a leaning toward 'facetiae.' In fact, since my great-aunt's withdrawal to another world, where it may be hoped that the stones are more brittle and the coffee better, I have seen none. I cannot say that I have been comforted by the tracts, but I have been interested by them, and I spend the brief hours of leisure which are vouchsafed to me in annotating my editions. And yet, my dear Duke, unfortunate as my situation is, I would not exchange places with my old self, a hired jester at rich men's tables, selling myself for a dinner which I could not digest, nor with that wretched monarch, in whose cause we all suffered, who left his gallant gentleman to die for his cause while he pursued his selfish pleasures. If it were chance that I get out of here, I shall strive to earn my bread, in the appointed way, by the sweat of my brow, and to work with my fellow-men. Present my kindest regards to our good friend Mr. Windsor, who has dared so much for our sake, and believe me, my dear old friend,

"Yours faithfully,

"No. 5 (ne JAMES SYDNEY)."

The Duke, when he had finished reading the letter, folded it carefully, and returned it into his pocket. His eyes were full of tears, and his voice broke as he read the quaint, pathetic words.

Mr. Windsor slapped his bony knee energetically, and arose from his chair.

"I must try to set the poor fellow free," he said energetically. "I do not believe that a forcible prison delivery would be successful again, when our former attempt is so fresh in the mind of the prison governor; but the presidential election in Great Britain and Ireland is approaching, and if I judge the signs of the times aright, the Radicals under Bagshaw will enter the campaign heavily weighted. If the Liberal-Conservatives put up such a man as Richard Lincoln they will re-elect him, and if the administration is changed, diplomacy and entreaty may accomplish a general release of political prisoners. The cause of the House of Hanover is so dead that, as Mother Goose says:

"'All the king's horses and all the king's men, Couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again.'

By the way, I believe they call George King Humpty Dumpty in the comic papers."

The Duke smiled ruefully; in his heart he despised the King, and faintly saw that his class had lost their privileges, but he could not get used to it. He knew that he was a broken old man, an exile from home, and dependent upon the kindness of Mr. Windsor; and he sighed deeply, wishing that he had died before the deluge which had gulfed all that was holy and precious to him.

Mr. Windsor saw that his thoughts were too sad and solemn for an alien intrusion, and left the old gentleman, still motionless, looking vacantly at the wall. The old Duke saw no Mount Ararat rising from the troubled waters; all that made life worth living for him had passed away, and he lagged superfluous on the stage; a supernumerary with a pasteboard coronet; laughed at and ranted about in the pantomime at which the world had laughed, "King Humpty Dumpty."

That afternoon Maggie Windsor had gone for her usual walk upon the Charles River embankment, a fine esplanade stretching for seven miles along the river-side. It was a beautiful day—one of those rare days which gladden the drear northern spring and remind dwellers in Boston that they live under the same latitude under which Naples idles. A turn of the Gulf Stream and the descendants of the Puritans would lose the last vestige of their inherited consciences and bask in the sun like happy animals. But though the sky was violet, the bright sunlight was cold.

Maggie walked briskly along, by the water park, out by the great houses in Longwood, to the light bridge which swept over the river to Cambridge. There were but few people walking on the embankment this cold day; a stream of carriages bright with glistening harness rolled by. A barge, filled with a merry party, and drawn by four horses, aroused Maggie from her thoughts, which had been of Geoffrey. She had not seen him since the evening of the King's drawing-room, when he had broken his sword before the monarch, and had returned his empty title to the dry fountain of honor. Her suspicions of him had died away long before she had received his letter by Reynolds's hand. She had heard of the emeute with an aching heart, and from her distant home in America she had watched the proceedings of the trial eagerly. Her life had died away within her when she read of the sentence of the prisoners, and knew that the man she loved was shut up from the world for fifteen years, like a common felon. And he owed his liberty to her, and yet he did not know it. He should have known it, by instinct, she thought. She had fancied that she knew the moment when he had made good his escape. Of a sudden, one day, during her father's absence in the yacht, the load from her soul had rolled away. She felt that he was free, and speeding over the sea to meet her. Now that he was arrived in America, she had seen him but once, and he had not spoken to her; he had bowed, with a stern, set face, and left the apartment. Had her cruel words there on the cliff by Ripon village cut away his love for her? Then the message which she had sent to him by his servant: "Tell your master that I am to be married." She had almost forgotten that. But his heart should have told him what she meant by that, she argued. "She was to be married, if only he wished it." Why did he not come to her? Could it be possible that he thought she was to marry another?

Such thoughts the rush and jingle of the great barge had interrupted. The barge rushed by, and looking up the strait she saw coming toward her, his form dark against the red sunset, Geoffrey Ripon.

He saw her at the same moment, and he took off his hat. She walked up to him and offered him her hand.

"Miss Windsor, Maggie," he said as he grasped it.

"You received my message?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"I did. Is it true?"

"I do not know," she answered, looking down at the river, which gleamed below rosy with the sunset; a happy omen. "It depends—"

"Upon what?" asked Geoffrey, eagerly.

"Upon you, Geoffrey," she answered. "Did you not know it?" And the sun, which just then disappeared over the Brookline hills, did not in his circuit of the world look upon a happier pair than these two lovers, clasped in each other's arms.



CHAPTER XXI.

NULLA VESTIGIA RETRORSUM.

So they were married, and the alliance between simple hearts and Norman blood was complete. It came to pass before many months that the millionaire, pleased, it may be, to find his homely patronymic transmitted to his grand-child, bought back Ripon House from the mortgagees and gave it to his son-in-law. Mr. Windsor knew it was the secret desire of his daughter that Geoffrey should return to England and devote himself to aiding his countrymen in their struggle for liberty. But Geoffrey was too content with his own happiness and too appalled by the confusion which still overspread his native land to evince much enthusiasm in this regard. "Wait a little, Maggie," he said, and Maggie was shrewd enough to understand that this was the better way to attain her purpose. She remembered how her husband had broken his sword and renounced fealty to the perjured King. Give Geoffrey time, and he would work out his own salvation.

But while individuals wedded and were happy and begat children, and while patient women tarried for God's word to awaken in their lovers' hearts, the great world, which is never happy and which never waits, rolled on remorselessly. England still knew perilous days, but the hope of better things to come glimmered through the mists of evil rule.

The bulwark of the nation's safety in that hazardous time, as history well knows, was Richard Lincoln; and though we who have faith that God is ever working for man's good, know that human nature must in the end evolve into higher grades of truth and power, and that even the sublimest soul is but a cipher in the eternal scale; yet England had need of a rare spirit in that time of her sore distress to save her from the rocks of revolution and anarchy. She found this in Richard Lincoln, whose name will be ever famous in the gratitude of his countrymen.

In strange contrast to the career of which we have just been speaking stands out the final pageant of the once splendid court of Britain. George the Fifth died, leaving no son to inherit his foibles and his title. The House of Hanover was shorn of male heirs in the nick of time, for it is doubtful if the populace would have permitted exiled royalty to indulge in the mimicry of another dynasty. But for the purposes of our story the King is still alive, since his death took place, as many of us know, in his eightieth year. There were but few of those whose vicissitudes we have followed able to tell the tale when the last Hanoverian, tenacious of vital breath as he had been of everything else, descended to his fathers. Le roi est mort, but the old world cry, "Long live the king," is silent forever.

Perhaps one of the keenest strokes at the self-esteem of the unfortunate monarch was the matrimonial apostasy of his daughter. The Princess Henrietta, contrary to the long-cherished traditions of her race, wedded in her thirteenth year a commoner, as it was described at court. She became the wife of L. Pierson Dana, a prominent dealer in hides and leather, and a man of culture and standing in the community. King George, with a senile confusing of terms, always insisted on speaking of the marriage as morganatic.

Concerning those who composed his court little remains to be said. The Duke of Bayswater was joined by his wife shortly after his escape to America. They never returned to their native country, but lived very exclusively in apartments near to the royal suite.

Colonel Featherstone, lured by hopes of fortune, organized a successful corner in lard, and invested the proceeds in a vineyard in California. The famous blue seal dry Hanover, which is even to-day regarded by connoisseurs as a grand vin, is a monument to his reverence for royalty as well as to his talent as a vine-dresser.

One day in late November, when little Abraham was about five years old, signs of great activity were noticeable about Ripon House. For a week past the environs had been rife with rumors concerning the return of Geoffrey to the house of his ancestors and the wealth which had accrued to him through his marriage with the daughter of the rich American who had once rented the manor-house. London mechanics had been repairing and furnishing the old-fashioned pile, striving withal to retain the flavor of antiquity which hung about its towers. There had been employment, too, for the artisans of the neighborhood, and even to-day, when the guests were to arrive before sunset, a bevy of the people were running hither and thither at the bidding of an old man with white hair and bent figure. He was evidently merely an upper servant, but the expression of his face betokened one whose joy and sorrow are an echo of his master's fortune.

A few hours later a carriage drew up before the threshold. A young man leaped to the ground and grasped with both of his the hand of the aged servitor.

"How are you, Reynolds?"

"God bless you, Mr. Ripon; God bless you."

"And here is my wife, Reynolds. You remember her."

The old man doffed his hat with a respectful formality. It was still a little against his grain to see an American his master's bride. "Welcome to Ripon House."

Maggie shook him by the hand, and her father's bantering voice now startled his dignified mood.

"So this is where you have been hiding all these years, Reynolds? You look like the wandering Arab, with your gray beard!"

Mr. Windsor doubtless referred to the Wandering Jew, but he was no scholar, as he would himself have been the first to acknowledge. All laughed at the mistake, and none louder than the fourth member of the party, a tall, middle-aged man, with a noble but genial countenance.

It was Richard Lincoln, to whom time had been generous during the six years which had flown since he was last at Ripon House. Despite the cares which had weighed upon his spirit, his brow was scarcely furrowed. He had come to be Geoffrey's guest for a few days and enjoy the tranquillity of the country. There were business matters also to be talked over with his friend, for Geoffrey had promised to take an active part in the public service of the country.

The friends sat long that evening around the dinner-table. There was much pleasant talk, but every face wore a thoughtful look. The intervening time since last they had gathered here was too full of incident to be passed over lightly. Recollection stood beside the hearth, and yet with a finger on the lips, as though loath to jar the atmosphere of revery with a word. And yet there were references made to the past. Lincoln asked what had become of that strange man Jawkins. But no one knew further than that he had fled with the splendid beauty.

"Is that woman's husband still living?" inquired Maggie.

All shook their heads in doubt.

"And dear old Sydney, do you know anything of him, Richard?" said Ripon.

"Yes. Only a few weeks since he married an attractive little widow with a snug property. I had him pardoned, you may remember, among my first acts as Prime Minister. Prison life seemed to have agreed with him. He had lost his dyspeptic air."

"That old scoundrel Bugbee had a curious end," observed Mr. Windsor. "To think of being bitten to death by a tarantula. Ugh! It seems he used to keep spiders under glass in his apartments, and this was one that escaped. And what an enormous fortune he left!"

So the conversation proceeded, and by and by they all adjourned to the library, where a wood-fire lighted up the huge fireplace. Richard Lincoln seated himself in a deep arm-chair beside the hearth, and rather avoiding talk gazed at the sizzling logs. His own thoughts sufficed him. Maggie, whose seat was next to his, watched his expression, where a shade of sadness lingered when his attention was not engrossed by others. At a moment that Geoffrey and her father were out of the room she leaned forward and said:

"Where is she buried?"

"They sleep side by side," was the quiet response. "Their love to-day laughs alike at peasant and at noble. I try to think of it as a symbol of what is to be," he continued. "Theirs is the first alliance in that reconciliation between the few and the many on which the hopes of posterity depend."

THE END