leaned on his stout arm! He taught
Alexia a thousand tricks of horse, so that to-day she rides as no other
woman in the kingdom rides. Would that I stood half so straight and
looked at the world half so fearlessly. He is the first soldier in the
kingdom."

"All men are honest in your Majesty's eyes," said the archbishop.

"All save the man within me," replied the king.

At this juncture the king's old valet came in with the evening meal; and
soon after the prelate and the chancellor withdrew from the chamber.

"How long will he live?" asked the latter.

"A year; perhaps only till to-morrow. Ah, had he but listened to me
several years ago, all this would not have come to pass. He would
see nothing; he persisted in dreams. With the death of Josef he was
convinced that his enemies had ceased to be. Had he listened, I should
have dismissed the cabinet, and found enough young blood to answer
my purposes; I should have surrounded him with a mercenary army two
thousand strong; by now he should have stood strongly entrenched.

"They have robbed him, but you and I were permitted to do nothing. Where
is the prosperity of which we formerly boasted? I, too, hear crumbling
walls. Yet, the son of this Englishman, whose strange freak is still
unaccountable, will come at the appointed time; I know the race. He will
renew the loan for another ten years. What a fancy! Lord Fitzgerald was
an eccentric man. Given a purpose, he pursued it to the end, neither
love nor friendship, nor fear swerved him. Do you know that he made
a vow that Duke Josef should never sit on this throne, nor his
descendants? What were five millions to him, if in giving them he
realized the end? The king would never explain the true cause of this
Englishman's folly, but I know that it was based on revenge, the cause
of which also is a mystery. If only the prince were here!"

"He will come; youth will be youth."

"Perhaps."

"You have never been young."

"Not in that particular sense to which you refer," dryly.

* * * * * *

In the chamber of finance Colonel Beauvais leaned over the desk and
perused the writing on a slip of paper which the minister had given him.
Enough daylight remained to permit the letters to stand out legibly.
When he had done the Colonel tossed back the missive, and the minister
tore it into shreds and dropped them into the waste basket.

"So much for your pains," said Beauvais. "The spy, who has eaten up ten
thousand crowns, is