is aching to go back there again."

He paused, and perhaps he hardly realized why Joan sighed with
happiness; for she could believe, at last, that he had never a pang for
his lost kingship.

[Illustration: He felt the thrill that ran through her veins
Page 306]

"It is my home, too, Alec," she cooed. "I was born in Vermont. We are
going home together."

"Yes, dear, no more partings. We shall not be wealthy, Joan. It seems
that the miserable little humbug whom I have regarded as my father has
wasted the whole of my mother's fortune by his extravagance. The only
scrap left is a small farm near Denver, and even that would have been
sold had not the crisis in Delgratz offered a wider scope for Michael's
plundering instincts. It is a strange thing, sweetheart, but on the day
we parted in Paris--the day the news came of the murder of Theodore and
his wife--Prince Michael quarreled with my mother because she refused to
sanction the sale of that last shred of her inheritance. In order to
vent his spite, he had actually decided to tell me the secret of my
birth in the very hour that Julius Marulitch announced the disappearance
of the Obrenovitch dynasty."

"And the goddess sent you east instead of west," she said softly.

"Yes, my trial has been short and sharp; but she must have found me
worthy, since she has given me--you."

They reached Paris next evening; but by that time the newspapers were
hot on the scent of the missing King. So far as could be judged from the
reports telegraphed by French correspondents in Delgratz, Stampoff had
remained true to his dream of a monarchy. For lack of a better, Michael
was King. Some one, Beliani probably, had issued a statement that the
infatuation of Alexis III. for a pretty Parisian artist had led him to
abdicate, and as soon as it was discovered that the Delgrado flat in the
Rue Boissiere was again occupied by Alec and his mother, they were
besieged by reporters anxious to glean details of a royal romance.

They decided, therefore, to leave Paris for London, where, under the
name of Talbot, they might hope to escape such unwelcome attentions. It
was no easy matter to shake off the horde of eager pressmen; but they
succeeded at last, and when Alec and Joan were quietly married in a West
End church, no one, except the officiating minister, had the least
knowledge of their identity.

After a brief honeymoon in Devon they rejoined Mrs. Talbot, and the
three sailed from Sout