scanned the beautiful petitioner. Once she raised
her face to speak, but meeting the gaze of the King her suffused eyes
sank again.

"She is quite overcome, Bugbee," said the King in a husky voice, as odd
as his appearance.

"The sight of her King has overpowered her, your Majesty," answered old
Bugbee, in a low tone of solemn awe.

"Come now," said George, encouragingly, and he touched the soft chin in
raising her face: "Speak! What may we do for so fair a subject?"

"Oh, my King!" exclaimed the Beauty, clasping her hands, "I come with
words only for your own ear."

An unquestionable frown shadowed Bugbee's face at the audacity of the
woman. George's little eyes rested on the face of the speaker, as if he
had not comprehended. The old banker remained standing in his place.

"I am bound, your Majesty, only to speak my message to you alone." She
was so evidently excited and her pleading was so eloquent that the King
was at once deeply interested.

George had raised her by taking her hand, and now he looked vaguely from
her to old Bugbee.

"It is a message. You said a petition," said the King, dubiously, to his
banker.

"Your Majesty, I thought--"

"Leave us, Bugbee," interrupted George, with a wave of his hand, not
looking at the banker. "Let us hear this fair messenger."

Old Bugbee bowed and backed till he reached the door, hardly knowing
whether to be pleased or indignant. He ought to have made the woman
explain her plan to him before she entered the King's presence. Now he
must wait, while she was free to act as she chose.

When the door closed on the banker Mrs. Carey's whole manner changed.
She drew near the King and excitedly laid her hand on his arm.

"Oh, your Majesty! I have come to save you! You are betrayed!"

"Betrayed!" repeated George, trying to grasp the idea, while his little
eyes were quite expressionless.

"Betrayed!" sobbed Mrs. Carey, "and all is lost except your Majesty's
life and liberty."

"How do you know this? Why does not he know?" and the alarmed George
nodded at the door.

"I do not know, your Majesty. I only know that I know it, and that I
have come here to save you at the risk of my life; but what is my life
to the precious life of my King?"

"Betrayed!" repeated George, as if the meaning of the word were slowly
coming to him out of a fog. "But to-morrow--to-day--my men will proclaim
the restoration."

"Oh, my King! to-morrow--"

"To-morrow I shall be King!" re-ec