rning, immunity or no immunity! Quick!"

"Highness," said the Gipsy, thoroughly alarmed, "this is how it
happened. My band was staying at the time in Dreiberg. We told fortunes
and exhibited an Italian puppet-show. The letter came first. I was poor
and sometimes desperate. I was to take her away and leave her with
strange people."

"Ah!" interrupted the duke, with despairing gesture toward Grumbach,
"why did you not leave us all in peace?"

"Highness, a great wrong has been done, and God brought me here to right
it."

"You are a brave man," darkly.

"I am in your hands, Highness," sturdily. "In a mad moment I committed a
crime. I shall abide by whatever punishment you may inflict."

"Continue," said the duke to the Gipsy.

"Well, Highness, I would not accept till I had talked personally with
him. He came at last. His face was hidden and his voice muffled. But
this I saw; when he gave me the first half of the money I was certain I
should know him again."

"How?"

"By his little finger, Highness."

"His little finger?" Von Arnsberg repeated. The two women, large-eyed
and bewildered, clung to each other's hand tensely. These were
heart-breaking times. Gretchen's mind, however, absorbed nothing,
neither the words nor the picture. Her thoughts revolved round one
thing; if she were a princess she could be happy. But the other, from
under whose feet all tangible substances seemed to be giving way, she
was possessed by two thoughts which surged in her brain like combatants.
If not a princess, what was she? If not a princess, she was free. She
stole a swift glance at Carmichael, who seemed far removed from the
heart of this black business; and had he been looking at her he would
have seen the gates opening into Eden.

"What was this little finger like?" asked the duke, shuddering.

"One time it had been cut or mangled."

"The man was tall?"

"Yes, Highness."

The duke silently toyed with the little yellow shoes. Suddenly he
laughed; but it was the terrible laughter of a madman. There were death
and desolation in it.

"Come, all of you; you, Gretchen, and you, Hildegarde; come, Carmichael,
and you, Arnsberg; all of you! Let us go and pay a visit to our good
friend, Herbeck!"

CHAPTER XXII

A LITTLE FINGER

The king of Jugendheit, Prince Ludwig, and the chancellor sat in the
form of a triangle. Herbeck was making a pyramid of his finger-tips,
sometimes touching his chin with his thumbs. His face