lly
speaking, the engagement is scarcely a day old. The Prince's note
claiming my promise reached me only this morning, and I imagine it is
only now that the Archbishop will have to be informed. Hitherto the
matter has been in suspension. You will understand it was dependent--on
my abdication, I might say."

"In that case, sir, the conditions are not fulfilled."

"I fear they are," said the King; "the Prince has my promise in writing;
and abdication is not mentioned. You see, it was the bomb that made all
the difference. Very provoking that it should have happened just then;
it upset all my plans!"

The Prime Minister began to look very uncomfortable.

"Oh, no," went on the King, observing his change of countenance, "don't
think that I am blaming you. What you said was quite true; abdication
after that became impossible; I am only saying it as an excuse for the
position in which I now find myself. It was not I who made the mistake,
it was that poor misguided person who threw the bomb; he ought to have
killed me. I am confident that, had the Prince been actually on the
throne, the situation would have been radically altered, that he would
not have persisted--that he would have seen, as you say, how impossible
the position would be. Very unfortunate--very--but there we are!"

"But again I say, sir, that even now, though the Prince is not on the
throne--and long may your Majesty be spared!--the whole thing is
absolutely and utterly impossible."

"I quite agree," said the King; "but that is the situation. Before now I
have found myself in similar ones, and have tried to get out of them;
yet I have seldom succeeded."

"But this, sir," persisted the Prime Minister, "is politically
impossible. Things could not go on."

"And yet, Mr. Premier, you know that they will have to; that is the very
essence of politics."

"I tell your Majesty that rather than admit such a possibility the
Ministry would resign."

"Very well--then it must," said the King. "But you will find that the
Prince will not regard my inability to secure an alternative Government
as any reason why he should not marry the lady of his choice. I may as
well tell you, for your information, that he has revolutionary ideas,
and this is one of them."

"I am confident," exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a gleam of hope,
"that the Archbishop himself will forbid it."

"Very likely," replied his Majesty; "but I am not sure that he will
succeed. I wish he cou