an."

He turned to the Duchess.

"Duchess," he said, "you see that my tapestries have already gone. They
left yesterday for Devenham Castle. I hope that you will find a place
there where you may hang them. They are a little older than your French
ones, and time, as you may remember, has been kind to them. It may
interest you to know that they were executed some thirteen hundred and
fifty years ago, and are of a design which, alas, we borrowed from the
Chinese."

The Prince paused for a moment. All were trying to express their thanks,
but no one was wholly successful. He waved their words gently aside.

"Lady Grace," he said, turning to the statuette of Buddha in a corner
of the room and taking from its neck a string of strange blue stones, "I
will not ask you to wear these, for they have adorned the necks of idols
for many centuries, but if you will keep them for my sake, they may
remind you sometimes of the color of our skies."

Once more he went to his writing table. From it he lifted, almost
reverently, a small bronze figure,--the figure of a woman, strongly
built, almost squat, without grace, whose eyes and head and arms reached
upwards.

"Miss Penelope," he said, "to you I make my one worthless offering. This
statuette has no grace, no shapeliness, according to the canons of your
wonderful Western art. Yet for five generations of my family it has been
the symbol of our lives. We are not idol worshippers in Japan, yet one
by one the men of my race have bent their knee before this figure and
have left their homes to fight for the thing which she represents. She
is not beautiful, she does not stand for the joys and the great gifts
of life, but she represents the country which to us stands side by side
with our God, our parents, and our Emperor. Nothing in life has been
dearer to me than this, Miss Penelope. To no other person would I part
with it."

She took it with a sudden hysterical sob, which seemed to ring out like
a strange note upon the unnatural stillness of the room. And then
there came a thing which happened before its time. The door was opened.
Inspector Jacks came in. With him were Dr. Spencer Whiles and the man
who a few days ago had been discharged from St. Thomas' Hospital. Of the
very distinguished company who were gathered there, Inspector Jacks took
little notice. His eyes lit upon the form of the Prince, and he drew
a sigh of relief. The door was closed behind him, and he saw no way by
whic