ve never had that which youth longs
for--a confidant of my own age. The young people I know serve me simply
for their own ends, and not because they love me.

"I have never spoken thus before to-day, save to this dog. He has been
my confidant; but he can not speak except with his kind old eyes, and he
can not understand as I would have him. And they hate even him because
they know that I love him. Poor dog!

"What my father has done has always been wrong in his own eyes, but he
sinned for my sake, and God will forgive him. He gave up the home he
loved for my sake. O, that I had known and understood! I was only six.
We are so alone; we have no place to go, no friends save two, and they
are helpless. And now I am to make a sacrifice for him to repay him for
all he has done for me. I have promised my hand to one I do not love;
even he forsakes me. But love is not the portion of princesses. Love to
them is a fairy story. To secure my father's throne I have sacrificed my
girlhood dreams. Ah! and they were so sweet and dear."

She put a hand to her throat as if something had tightened there.
"Marshal, I beg of you to tell me the truth, the truth! Is my father
dying? Is he? He--they will not tell me the truth. And I. .. never to
hear his voice again! The truth, for pity's sake!" She caught at his
hands and strove to read his eyes. "For pity's sake!"

He drew his breath deeply. He dared not look into her eyes for fear she
might see the tears in his; so he bent hastily and pressed her hands to
his lips. But in his heart he knew that his promise to the dead was gone
with the winds, and that he would shed the last drop of blood in his
withered veins for the sake of this sad, lonely child.

"Your father, my child, will never stand up straight again," he said.
"As for the rest, that is in the hands of God. But I swear to you that
this dried-up old heart beats only for you. I will stand or fall with
you, in good times or bad." And he rubbed his nose more fiercely than
ever. "Had I a daughter--But there! I have none."

"My heart is breaking," she said, with a little sob. She sank back, her
head drooped to the arm of the bench, and she made no effort to stem the
flood of tears. "I have no mother, and now my father is to leave me.
And I love him so, I love him so! He has sacrificed all his happiness to
secure mine--in vain. I laugh and smile because he asks me to, and all
the while my heart is breaking, breaking."

At this junctu