his mother, he greeted the girl with a
quiet pressure of the hand.

"What is the cause of all this commotion?" asked the Empress.

Roland tapped his breast.

"I am the cause, mother," and he related the history of the relief
committee, and if appreciation carries with it gratification, his was
the advantage of knowing that the two women agreed he was the most
wonderful of men.

"But indeed, mother," continued Roland, "I selfishly rob you of the
credit. The beginning of all this was really your gift to me of five
hundred thalers, that time I came to crave your assistance in procuring
me this document I still carry, and without your thalers and the
parchment, this never could have happened. So you see they have
increased like the loaves and fishes of Holy Writ, and thus feed the
multitude."

Her Majesty arose, smiling.

"Ah, Roland," she said, kissing him, "you always gave your mother more
credit than she deserved. It wrung my heart at the time that I was so
scant of money." Then, pleading fatigue, the Empress left the room.

"Hilda!" cried the young man, "when you and I discuss things, those
things become true. Yesterday we agreed that the Imperial throne was not
so enviable a seat as a chair by the domestic hearth. To-day I propose
to secure the chair at the hearth, and to-morrow I shall freely give up
the Imperial throne."

The girl uttered an exclamation that seemed partly concurrence and
partly dismay, but she spoke no word, gazing at him intently as he
strode up and down the room, and listening with eagerness. Walking
backwards and forwards, looking like an enthusiastic boy, he very
graphically detailed the situation as he had learned it from Greusel.

"Now you see, my dear, any opposition to the Archbishop of Mayence means
a conflict, and supposing in that conflict our friends were to win, the
victory would be scarcely less disastrous than defeat. I at once made up
my mind, fortified by my knowledge of your opinion on the subject, that
for all the kingships in the world I could not be the cause of civil
dissension."

"That is a just and noble decision," she said, speaking for the first
time.

Then, standing before her, the young man in more moderate tone related
what had happened and what had been said in the chapel of the
Benedictine Fathers. She looked up at him, earnest face aglow, during
the first part of his recital, and now and then the sunshine of a smile
flickered at the corners of her mouth