oor tender little goose-girl!
The pity of it! This king was a scoundrel.

"Leo, look at me! You are laughing! Why, did we not work together in the
vineyards, and did we not plan for the future? _Ah_, yes! You are a king
only to me. I see. But it is a cruel jest, Leopold. Smile at me! Say
something!" Gretchen was hanging to the bars now; her body, held in the
vise of growing terror, was almost a dead weight.

"Gretchen, forgive me!" despairingly.

"He asks me to forgive him!" dully. "For what?"

"For being a villain! Yes," his voice keen with agony. "I _am_ the king
of Jugendheit. But am I less a man for that? Ah, God help me, I have a
right to love like other men! Do not doubt me, Gretchen; do not think
that I played with you. I love you better than my crown, better than my
honor!"

"Take care, nephew!" came Prince Ludwig's warning. "Some one else is
near."

"I care not! Before all the world I would gladly proclaim it. I love
her. I swear that I shall never marry, that my heart is breaking!
Gretchen, Gretchen! My God, she is falling! Help her!" wildly; and he
shook the bars with supernatural strength till his hands were bleeding.

But Gretchen did not answer.

CHAPTER XXI

TWIN LOCKETS

Carmichael tramped about his room, restless, uneasy, starting at sounds.
Half a dozen times his cigar had gone out, and burned matches lay
scattered on the floor. He was waiting for Grumbach and his confreres.
Now he looked out of a window, now he spun the leaves of a book, now he
sat down, got up, and tramped again. Anything but this suspense. A full
day! The duel in the _Biergarten_; the king of Jugendheit and the prince
regent in the Stein-schloss; the flight of the ambassador to the palace,
more like a madman than one noted for his calm and circumspection;
Gretchen carried into the palace in a dead faint, and her highness
weeping; the duke in a rage and brought over only after the hardest
struggle Carmichael had ever experienced. And deeper, firmer, became his
belief and conviction that Grumbach's affair vitally concerned her
highness. What blunder had been made? He would soon know. He welcomed
the knock on his door. Grumbach came in, carrying under his arm a small
bundle. He was pale but serene, like a man who had put his worldly
affairs in order.

"Well, Captain, what did his Highness say?"

"Where are your companions?"

"They are waiting outside."

"The duke agrees. He will give us an audience at eight-t