ging tenaciously to her purpose, she was still cognizant of the debt
she owed the trusting, loving people of Graustark. One word from her
could avert the calamity that was to fall with the dawn of the fatal
twentieth. All Graustark blindly trusted and adored her; to undeceive
them would be to administer a shock from which they could never recover.

Her heart was bursting with love for Lorry; her mind was overflowing
with tender thoughts that could not be sent to him, much as she trusted
to the honor of Quinnox, her messenger. Hour after hour she sat in her
window and marveled at the change that had been wrought in her life by
this strong American, her eyes fixed on the faraway monastery, her
heart still and cold and fearful. She had no confidant in this miserable
affair of the heart. Others, near and dear, had surmised, but no word of
hers confirmed. A diffidence, strange and proud, forbade the confession
of her frailty, sweet, pure and womanly though it was. She could not
forget that she was a Princess.

The Countess Dagmar was piqued by her reticence and sought in manifold
ways to draw forth the voluntary avowal, with its divine tears and
blushes. Harry Anguish, who spent much of his time at the castle and
who invariably deserted his guards at the portals, was as eager as the
Countess to have her commit herself irretrievably by word or sign,
but he, too, was disappointed. He was, also, considerably puzzled.
Her Highness's manner was at all times frank and untroubled. She was
apparently light-hearted; her cheeks had lost none of their freshness;
her eyes were bright; her smile was quick and merry; her wit unclouded.
Receptions, drawing-rooms and state functions found her always
vivacious, so much so that her Court wondered not a little. Daily
reports brought no news of the fugitive, but while others were beginning
to acquire the haggard air of worry and uncertainty, she was calmly
resigned. The fifteenth, the sixteenth, the seventeenth, the eighteenth
and now the nineteenth of November came and still the Princess revealed
no marked sign of distress. Could they have seen her in the privacy of
her chamber on those dreary, maddening nights they would not have known
their sovereign.

Heavy-hearted and with bowed heads the people of Graustark saw the
nineteenth fade in the night, the breaking of which would bring the
crush of pride, the end of power. At court there was the silent dread
and the dying hope that relief might