cape--we can walk to the
station in ten minutes--that gives us ten minutes to spare. Here, you
take the rug and this valise, I will take the other. We will find a
street porter at the corner, or a carriage. Do not open the door until I
tell you!

[Door bursts open and Prince Yanko half-tumbles in.]

PRINCE. I am unharmed--congratulate me--I am unharmed!

[Opens arms to embrace Helene, who backs away.]

HELENE. And Lassalle--Lassalle--where is Lassalle?

PRINCE. He is dead--I killed him!

HELENE. You killed Lassalle--the greatest man in Europe--you killed him!

PRINCE. He fell at the first fire--congratulate me!

HELENE. You lie! Lassalle is not dead. Away! Away! I scorn you--loathe
you--away--the sight of you burns my eyeballs--the murderer of
Lassalle--away!

[Helene crouches in a corner. Prince stands stiff, amazed. The man,
with valises in one hand and rug in shawl-strap, looks on with
lack-luster eye, frozen by indecision.]

* * * * *

_Note._--Helene von Donniges married Prince Racowitza three weeks after
the death of Lassalle. The Prince died two years later. Princess Helene
committed suicide at Munich, March Twenty-six, Nineteen Hundred Twelve,
aged sixty-seven years. These facts are of such a dull slaty-gray and so
lacking in dramatic interest that they are omitted from the play.

LORD NELSON AND LADY HAMILTON

The last moments which Nelson passed at Merton were employed in
praying over his little daughter as she lay sleeping. A portrait of
Lady Hamilton hung in his cabin; and no Catholic ever beheld the
picture of his patron saint with more devout reverence. The
undisguised and romantic passion with which he regarded it amounted
almost to superstition; and when the portrait was now taken down, in
clearing for action, he desired the men who removed it to "take care
of his guardian angel." In this manner he frequently spoke of it, as
if he believed there was a virtue in the image. He wore a miniature
of her also next to his heart.

--_Robert Southey_

[Illustration: LORD NELSON]

Robert Southey, poet laureate, and conservative Churchman, wrote the
life of Nelson, wrote it on stolen time--sandwiched in between essays
and epics. And now behold it is the one effort of Robert Southey that
perennially survives, and is religiously read--his one great cla