nd revert to the name she bore during her first marriage.

"I never realized the tenth part of her suffering in Paris," he said,
"though I knew far more about Prince Michael's conduct than he guessed.
We must make it our business, Joan, to bring some brightness into her
declining years. I have been planning our future all day in the train.
Shall I become the fortune teller this time?"

"Yes," she murmured, "and perhaps I may forget that I have cost you a
Kingdom."

He laughed gayly, just as he used to laugh on those bright May mornings
when he waited on the Pont Neuf in the hope that he might be permitted
to escort her to the Louvre.

"Never dream that I shall bring that up against you, dear heart," he
said. "Delgratz ought to advertise itself as a sure cure for ambition. I
liked the people; but I hated the job, and Kosnovia is already becoming
a myth in my mind. I am rejoicing in my new name, Alexander Talbot. I
hope you like it. My mother tells me that my father was one of the
strong men of the West. I am called after him, it seems, and although my
own name sounds strange to me I like the purposeful ring in it."

Joan laughed merrily. "Felix was teasing me this morning by suggesting
that you might have been christened Phineas," she said.

"The wretch! And what if I was?"

She looked at him with a delightful shyness. "No matter what name you
bore, you would always be my Alec," she whispered.

They were leaning over the balcony of an open air restaurant at the
moment; so Alec perforce contented himself with clasping her hand.

"And now for my scheme, little girl," he said. "We will get married at
once, of course."

She made no reply; but he felt the thrill that ran through her veins.

"Then," he went on, so gravely that she raised her eyes to his, seeking
to catch his slightest shade of meaning; for her heart was still
troubled by the fear that she had wrought him evil, "I will take you to
America, my home. There is surely a nest for us out there. I have never
understood it before; but often, as a boy, I felt the call of the West.
It was natural, I suppose. We had many American friends in Paris, and my
blood tingled when they spoke of the great rivers, the prairies, the
ocean lakes, the giant mountain ranges, and the far flung plains of that
wondrous continent which they describe with a reverent humor as God's
own country. I feel that I shall win a place for myself in the land of
my birth, and my poor mother