ad
disappeared.

"I am afraid it is serious," she said, watching him with wide, terrified
eyes. "I know more than you think I do. I--we hear things, even in the
Palace."

Irony here, but unconscious. "I know that there is trouble. And it is
not like Captain Larisch to desert his post."

"A boyish escapade, Highness," said the Chancellor. But, in the
twilight, he gripped hard at the arms of his chair. "He will turn up,
very much ashamed of himself, to-night or to-morrow."

"That is what you want to believe. You know better."

He leaned back in his chair and considered her from under his heavy
brows. So this was how things were; another, and an unlooked-for
complication. Outside he could hear Mathilde's heavy footstep as she
waited impatiently for the Princess to go. The odor of a fresh omelet
filled the little house. Nikky gone, perhaps to join the others who, one
by one, had felt the steel of the Terrorists. And this girl, on whom so
much hung, sitting there, a figure of young tragedy.

"Highness," he said at last, "if the worst has happened,--and that I
do not believe,--it will be because there is trouble, as you have said.
Sooner or later, we who love our country must make sacrifices for it.
Most of all, those in high places will be called upon. And among them
you may be asked to help."

"I? What can I do?" But she knew, and the Chancellor saw that she knew.

"It is Karl, then?"

"It may be King Karl, Hedwig."

Hedwig rose, and the Chancellor got heavily to his feet. She was
fighting for calmness, and she succeeded very well. After all, if Nikky
were gone, what did it matter? Only-- "There are so many of you," she
said, rather pitifully. "And you are all so powerful. And against you
there is only--me."

"Why against us, Highness?"

"Because," said Hedwig, "because I care for some one else, and I shall
care for him all the rest of my life, even if he never comes back. You
may marry me to whom you please, but I shall go on caring. I shall never
forget. And I shall make Karl the worst wife in the world, because I
hate him."

She opened the door and went out without ceremony, because she was
hard-driven and on the edge of tears. In the corridor she almost ran
over the irritated Mathilde, and she wept all the way back to the
Palace, much to the dismay of her lady in waiting, who had disapproved
of the excursion anyhow.

That night, the city was searched for Nikky Larisch, but without result.

CHA