and where a King
rode to fetch a fairy bride.

At Cattaro we took the fishing boat which had carried me yesterday; and
I think the sailor-men realized, when they saw what I had brought back,
that I wasn't a madman after all.

Then the spin from Castelnuovo to Ragusa that I had taken in such a
different mood fifteen hours before. And at Ragusa, Beechy, still pale
and shaken, springing up from her sofa to meet Maida and me as we opened
the door.

Ralph sprang up too, and his chair had been drawn so close to her sofa
that the rush of her white wrapper--or whatever it was--upset it.

"Where's Mamma?" came the first question, as was natural.

"She's gone to her room, and we're to talk to you before she sees you,"
said Maida. "Oh Beechy, you must be good to her; she's miserable."

Then we told the story, preparing Beechy for her mother's decision, and
I expected hysterics. But she neither laughed nor cried. She only sat
still, looking curiously guilty and meek.

"Isn't it dreadful? But I couldn't do anything," said Maida. "He is a
wicked man--you don't know yet how wicked. He got me up to Montenegro by
a horrid pretence, and when I wouldn't promise to marry him at once he
tried arguments for about an hour, then locked the door of a room in the
house where we were because his motor broke down, and threatened to
shoot me. I don't know if he really would. Perhaps not. But anyway, Mr.
Barrymore saved me. He came just then and burst the door open."

"It's all my fault from beginning to end!" broke out Beechy, tragically.
"I confessed to Sir Ralph yesterday, when I was only worried for fear
something might happen, but now it _has_ happened, I'll confess to you,
too. I got afraid Mamma would really marry the Prince--oh, but that
wasn't the way it began! Just for fun, long ago, when we first started,
I let him pump me--it was great fun _then_--and told him how rich Mamma
was, and would be, even if she married again. I thought it would be such
larks to watch his game, and so it was for a while, till I was in an
awful stew for fear I'd gone too far and couldn't stop things. I was
ready then to do something desperate rather than find myself saddled
with _that_ Prince for my step-father. So I sacrificed you."

"I don't see--" Maida began; but Beechy cut her short.

"Why, when we went to that Sisterhood of yours, I overheard the Mother
Superior, or whatever you call her, confiding to Mamma that you were a
tremendous heiress, th