But unquestionably they plotted. As for the capital, it was a seething
riot of sedition, from the reports. A copy of a newspaper, secretly
printed and more secretly circulated, had brought fire to the King's
eyes. It lay on his knees as his daughter entered.

Annunciata touched her lips to his hand. Absorbed as he was in other
matters, it struck him, as she bent, that Annunciata was no longer
young, and that Time w as touching her with an unloving finger. He
viewed her graying hair, her ugly clothes, with the detached eye of age.
And he sighed.

"Well, father," she said, looking down at him, "how do you feel?"

"Sit down," he said. The question as to his health was too perfunctory
to require reply. Besides, he anticipated trouble, and it was an
age-long habit of his to meet it halfway.

Annunciata sat, with a jingling of chains. She chose a straight chair,
and faced him, very erect.

"How old is Hedwig?" demanded the King

"Nineteen."

"And Hilda?"

"Sixteen."

He knew their ages quite well. It was merely the bugle before the
attack.

"Hedwig is old enough to marry. Her grandmother was not nineteen when I
married her."

"It would be better," said Annunciata, "to marry her while she is young,
before she knows any better."

"Any better than what?" inquired the King testily.

"Any better than to marry at all."

The King eyed her. She was not, then, even attempting to hide her claws.
But he was an old bird, and not to be caught in an argumentative cage.

"There are several possibilities for Hedwig," he said. "I have gone into
the matter pretty thoroughly. As you know, I have had this on my mind
for some time. It is necessary to arrange things before I--go."

The King, of course, was neither asking nor expecting sympathy from her,
but mentally, and somewhat grimly, he compared her unmoved face with
that of his old friend and Chancellor, only a few nights before.

"It is a regrettable fact," he went on, "that I must leave, as I shall,
a sadly troubled country. But for that--" he paused. But for that, he
meant, he would go gladly. He needed rest. His spirit, still so alive,
chafed daily more and more against its worn body. He believed in another
life, did the old King. He wanted the hearty handclasp of his boy again.
Even the wife who had married him against her will had grown close to
him in later years. He needed her too. A little rest, then, and after
that a new life, with those who had gone ahead.