uddenly, she flung both
hands to her face, and a piteous shivering racked her body.

"Catch her, stupid!" cried Jacqueline. "Don't you see, the child is
fainting!"

But it was into Jacqueline's readier arms that she fell, and it was
Jacqueline who let her slip gently into the high-back chair that was the
imperial throne en voyage, under the claws of the oaken Hapsburg
griffins.

"Get water! quick--Majesty, you--your cologne flasks!"

[Illustration: "MARIA DE LA LUZ"
"The tapestry behind them parted and fell"]

A mist was in the prince's eyes. "Pobrecita, pobrecita," he muttered
helplessly.

On Jacqueline depended what was next to be done. She ran to the door by
which the girl had entered. "See, there's a corridor here," she cried,
"and that must be her room, there at the end, where the door is open.
Help me carry her--unless," and she deliberately punctuated her scorn,
"unless Your Majesty desires to call for aid?"

But His Majesty was so far from desiring anything of the kind that he
nodded gratefully, impatiently. So to her own room they bore her between
them, and laid her on the bed there. A pewter waiter with napkin and
coffee service was on a little table. But the tiny loaf of pan de huevo
lay untouched. Her thoughts rather than appetite had possessed the girl
when she awoke that morning, and they had kept her until she emerged to
stumble upon an emperor in her father's house.

"Out of here," ordered Jacqueline. "I am going to call the servants."
She had no sympathy for his wistful, forlorn gazing.

"It's the end, the end of my idyl," he murmured.

"_Are_ you going?"

He came nearer instead, and looked in profound melancholy at the girl.
The ruby flush was no longer there, and the face was olive and waxen.
The lips were parted, baring teeth that were marvelously white. The
shawl had fallen to the floor, and an ivory cross on a chain about her
neck caught his eye. He turned it over in his hand, and on the gold,
where the chain was attached, he saw an inscription.

"Maria de la Luz," he read. "So, that is her name. But I never asked it.
Identity would have blighted the idyl."

"Sire," Jacqueline protested angrily, "this poor child needs help. I
shall----"

"One moment, mademoiselle, I wish to say that I still do not know who
she is."

Then, with a last sorrowful look, he turned back to his apartment of
state.

Jacqueline's lip curled as she watched him go.

"And you wish me to find out who she