lp, and also to
see if you were in need of help. Prince Udo was my friend, but if he
has not been a friend of yours, then he is no longer a friend of mine.
Tell me what has been happening here, and then tell me if in any way
I can help you."

"You called me Hyacinth yesterday," she said, "and it is still my
name."

"Hyacinth," said Coronel, taking her hand, "tell me if you want me at
all."

"Thank you, Coronel. You see, Coronel, it's like this." And sitting
beneath Wiggs's veteran of the forest, with Coronel lying at her feet,
she told him everything.

"It seems easy enough," he said when she had finished. "You want Udo
pushed out and the Countess put in her place. I can do the one while
you do the other."

"Yes, but how do I push Prince Udo out?"

"That's what _I'm_ going to do."

"Yes, but, Coronel dear, if I could put the Countess in her place,
shouldn't I have done it a long time ago? I don't think you quite
know the sort of person she is. And I don't quite know what her place
is either, which makes it rather had to put her into it. You see, I
don't think I told you that--that Father is rather fond of her."

"I thought you said Udo was."

"They both are."

"Then how simple. We simply kill Udo, and--and--well, anyhow, there's
one part of it done."

"Yes, but what about the other part?"

Coronel thought for a moment.

"Would it be simpler if we did it the other way around?" he said.
"Killed the Countess and put Udo in his place."

"Father wouldn't like that at all, and he's coming back to-morrow."

Coronel didn't quite see the difficulty. If the King was in love with
the Countess, he would marry her whatever Hyacinth did. And what was
the good of putting her in her place for one day if her next place was
to be on the throne.

Hyacinth guessed what he was thinking.

"Oh, don't you see," she cried, "she doesn't know that the King is
coming back to-morrow. And if I can only just show her--I don't mind
if it's only for an hour--that I am not afraid of her, and that she
has got to take her orders from me, then I shan't mind so much all
that has happened these last weeks. But if she is to have disregarded
me all the time, if she is to have plotted against me from the very
moment my father went away, and if nothing is to come to her for it
but that she marries my father and becomes Queen of Euralia, then I
can have no pride left, and I will be a Princess no longer."

"I must see this Be