iption which her father had used with
success.

Taking an affectionate leave of the Countess, she went to Paris, and was
allowed to see the King.

He was very polite, but it was plain he thought her a quack. "It would
not become me," he said, "to apply to a simple maiden for the relief
which all the learned doctors cannot give me."

"Heaven uses weak instruments sometimes," said Helena, and she declared
that she would forfeit her life if she failed to make him well.

"And if you succeed?" questioned the King.

"Then I will ask your Majesty to give me for a husband the man whom I
choose!"

So earnest a young lady could not be resisted forever by a suffering
king. Helena, therefore, became the King's doctor, and in two days the
royal cripple could skip.

He summoned his courtiers, and they made a glittering throng in the
throne room of his palace. Well might the country girl have been
dazzled, and seen a dozen husbands worth dreaming of among the handsome
young noblemen before her. But her eyes only wandered till they found
Bertram. Then she went up to him, and said, "I dare not say I take you,
but I am yours!" Raising her voice that the King might hear, she added,
"This is the Man!"

"Bertram," said the King, "take her; she's your wife!"

"My wife, my liege?" said Bertram. "I beg your Majesty to permit me to
choose a wife."

"Do you know, Bertram, what she has done for your King?" asked the
monarch, who had treated Bertram like a son.

"Yes, your Majesty," replied Bertram; "but why should I marry a girl who
owes her breeding to my father's charity?"

"You disdain her for lacking a title, but I can give her a title," said
the King; and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came to him, and
he added, "Strange that you think so much of blood when you could not
distinguish your own from a beggar's if you saw them mixed together in a
bowl."

"I cannot love her," asserted Bertram; and Helena said gently, "Urge
him not, your Majesty. I am glad to have cured my King for my country's
sake."

"My honor requires that scornful boy's obedience," said the King.
"Bertram, make up your mind to this. You marry this lady, of whom you
are so unworthy, or you learn how a king can hate. Your answer?"

Bertram bowed low and said, "Your Majesty has ennobled the lady by your
interest in her. I submit."

"Take her by the band," said the King, "and tell her she is yours."

Bertram obeyed, and with little delay he was ma