to my
letter--how could I guess you were ill? I was rebuffed at both your
house and club. A sensitive man might well read your acquiescence in
such treatment. Will you accept my apology? Here we are," he added, as
the cab drew up to the curb.

"Don't apologize," said Carter, shaking him by the hand, while his eyes
hungrily devoured the front of the tenement with avidity that sought for
some sign of Trusia. "Is this the place?" The grimy pile was sanctified
in his eyes as it sheltered the woman to whom he had given his whole
heart.

Trembling like an eager child, after dismissing the cabby, he scrambled
breathlessly after his guide up steep and dirty stairs to the third
floor, past passages and open doors, which showed more than one family
huddled together in single apartments.

"She does not live as these?" he asked with repugnance.

"No," said his companion, regarding a group with unconcealed
compassion, "I was fortunate enough to secure a separate room for her,
poor as it is." But the man nobly concealed the price he had had to pay,
to be content to sleep upon a straw mattress in a sub-cellar--nor did
Trusia know what sacrifices her former minister was making for her
meagre comforts.

The door of an apartment stood open at the end of the next turn in the
entry. Both men, hushed by conflicting emotions, stood regarding the
scene before them.

At a window, her face a trifle thinner, more _spirituelle_, because of
her heartaches, sat Trusia. The light, touching the edges of her hair,
glinted into an iridescent halo about her face. Across her knees lay a
little child. Its mother, with anxious, peasant face, was bending over
its ailing form, while the large, whole-souled regard which Trusia bent
upon the tiny form made a picture of a modern Madonna.

Then, the air whispered its tidings to her soul. She glanced up and saw
Carter standing in the passageway. Gently placing the infant in the
maternal arms held out for it, she arose and without a spoken word came
to him; came so close that there was nothing for him to do but to take
her tenderly in his arms. Assured of their right, her hands lay on his
shoulders, while her eyes sought out his soul.

Then, careless whether the whole world looked on or not, their lips met
gently, lingeringly.

"Though all thrones have fallen," she sighed blissfully, "you are still
my King."

"Trusia, my Trusia," he said, while Sobieska fled silently from their
view.

FINALE