ng behind all this. Frederick is
not a youth of peccadilloes. Something has happened to him. But God send
him safe and sound to us, so much depends on him. And Alexia?"

"Says nothing," the archbishop answered, "a way with her when troubled."

"And my old friend, Lord Fitzgerald?"

The prelate shook his head sadly. "We have just been made acquainted
with his death. God rest his kindly soul."

The king sank deeper into his pillows.

"But we shall hear from his son within a few days," continued the
prelate, taking the king's hand in his own. "My son, cease to worry.
Alexia's future is in good hands. I have confidence that the public debt
will be liquidated on the twentieth."

"Or renewed," said the chancellor. "Your Majesty must not forget that
Prince Frederick sacrifices his own private fortune to adjust our
indebtedness. That is the wedding gift which he offers to her Highness.
One way or the other, we have nothing to fear."

"O!" cried the king, "I had forgotten that magnanimity. His
disappearance is no longer a mystery. He is dead."

His auditors could not repress the start which this declaration caused
them to make.

"Sire," said the chancellor, quietly, "princes are not assassinated
these days. Our worry is perhaps all needless. The prince is young, and
sometimes youth flings off the bridle and runs away. But he loves her
Highness, and the Carnavians are not fickle."

The prelate and the statesman had different ideas in regard to the
peasant girl. To the prelate a woman was an unknown quantity, and he
frowned. The statesman, who had once been young, knew a deal about
woman, and he smiled.

"Sometimes, my friends," said the king, "I can see beyond the human
glance. I hear the crumbling of walls. But for that lonely child I could
die in peace. The crown I wear is of lead; God hasten the day that lifts
it from my brow." When the king spoke again, he said: "And that insolent
Von Rumpf is gone at last? I am easier. He should have been sent about
his business ten years ago. What does Madame the duchess say?"

"So little," answered the chancellor, "that I begin to distrust her
silence. But she is a wise woman, though her years are but five and
twenty, and she will not make any foolish declaration of war which would
only redound to her chagrin."

"What is the fascination in these crowns of straw?" said the king to the
prelate. "Ah, my father, you strive for the crown to come; and yet your
earnest but misgu