rt, it is true, but none the less
warfare. Military despotism is the tocsin. When the King presses an
unwilling subject into the army, upon his discharge the unwilling
subject, usually a peasant, becomes a socialist. These Rousseaus and
Voltaires have a certain amount of education, but they lack daring. If
a man like Hillars, who had not only brains but daring, should get
mixed up in one of these embroglios, some blood would be spilled before
the trouble became adjusted. Still, Hillars, with all his love of
adventure, was not ordinarily reckless. Yet, if he met the Princess,
she would find a willing tool in him for her slightest caprice.
Whatever happened the brunt would fall upon him. My opinion, formed
from various stories I had heard of the Princess, was not very
flattering to her. The letter and its possibilities disturbed me.

The second letter was from headquarters in New York.

"DEAR WINTHROP--We want a good Sunday special. Her Serene Highness the
Princess Hildegarde of Hohenphalia has taken it into her head to
disappear again. Go over and see Rockwell in B----; he will give you a
good yarn. It has never been in type yet, and I daresay that it will
make good reading. London seems particularly dull just now, and you
can easily turn over your affairs to the assistant. This woman's life
is more full of romance than that of any other woman of the courts of
Europe. The most interesting part of it is her reputation is said to
be like that of Caesar's wife--above reproach. Get a full history of
her life and of the Prince whom she is to marry. If you can get any
photographs do so. I know how you dislike this sort of work, prying
into private affairs, as you call it, but with all these sensational
sheets springing up around us, we must keep in line now and then. Do
you know anything about Hillars; is he dead or alive? Take all the
time you want for the story and send it by mail."

"The Princess Hildegarde!" I cried aloud. "The deuce take the woman!"

"What's that?" asked my assistant, who had overheard my outburst.

"Oh, I am to go across on a special story," I said with a snarl, "just
as I was fixing for a week's fishing. I've got to concern myself with
the Princess Hildegarde of Hohenphalia."

"Ah, the Princess Hildegarde?" said the young fellow, pushing back his
hat and elevating his feet, a trick he had acquired while being reared
in his native land, which was the State of Illinois, in Am