e
was humanity's puny infant. He had dawdled among men centuries older
than himself. His whole being was out of harmony with the universe. Fate
had held his soul fast during those Dark Ages when he might have striven
nobly, and now had cast it forth, an anachronism. It was a soul
misplaced in eternity. The dire realization grew and grew, and with it
the tragic agony, until with a sudden and the bitterest of cries he
flung up his arms and fell heavily across the table.

"My life!" he moaned in piteous begging for something he might not have.
"My life, to live my life over again!"

In the first light of morning Escobedo came. The Republican general
unfolded a paper, and began to read. But instead of the death sentence,
it was reprieve. President Juarez had postponed execution for three
days.

"Three days?" Maximilian repeated, wearily shaking his head. "If your
Republic could give me as many centuries, but three days!--Three days,
in which to _live_ my life!"

CHAPTER XX

KNIGHTHOOD'S BELATED FLOWER

"Trusting to shew, in wordes few,
That men have an ill use
(To their own shame) women to blame,
And causeless them accuse."
--_The Nut-Brown Maid._

Later the same morning there sounded the ineffable swish of silken
petticoats along the corridor and the clinking of high heels on the
tiles. La Senorita Marquesa d'Aumerle had obtained permission to visit
His Most Serene Highness. The sentinel of the evening before was again
on duty, and his evil crossed eye seemed to lighten with vast humor as
he presented arms for the lady to pass. She met his insolence with a
searching, level gaze.

Maximilian hastened to the door of his bare cell, and took both her
hands in his. "I am beginning to recognize my friends," he said simply.
"I know, I know," he added, "you come to tell me that you failed to get
the pardon. But you do bring reprieve."

He would have her believe that he valued that.

Jacqueline regarded steadily the tall, slight figure in black, with the
pinioned sheep of the Golden Fleece about his neck, and she sighed. She
was disappointed in him. She had thought that pride of race, if nothing
more, would give him character during these last moments. She allowed,
too, for the grief, and the remorse, in the blow of Charlotte's death.
But she was not prepared for the roving eyes, the disordered mind, the
feverish unrest of the condemned prince. Had his soul, then, been a
cringing