else, to pray
for them. And sometimes, if they have faith enough, the holy miracle
happens, and they are cured."

The Chancellor was deeply religious, and although he had planned the
pilgrimage for political reasons, for the moment he lost sight of them.
What if, after all, this clear-eyed, clean-hearted child could bring
this miracle of the King's recovery? It was a famous shrine, and
stranger things had been brought about by less worthy agencies.

"I thought," he said, "that if you would go to Etzel, Otto, and there
pray for your grandfather's recovery, it--it would be a good thing."

The meaning of such a pilgrimage dawned suddenly on the boy. His eyes
filled, and because he considered it unmanly to weep, he slid from his
chair and went to the window. There he got out his pocket-handkerchief
and blew his nose.

"I'm afraid he's going to die," he said, in a smothered voice.

The Chancellor followed him to the window, and put an arm around his
shoulders. "Even that would not be so terrible, Otto," he said. "Death,
to the old, is not terrible. It is an open door, through which they
go gladly, because--because those who have gone ahead are waiting just
beyond it."

"Are my mother and father waiting?"

"Yes, Otto."

He considered. "And my grandmother?"

"Yes."

"He'll be very glad to see them all again."

"Very happy, indeed. But we need him here, too, for a while. You need
him and--I. So we will go and pray to have him wait a little longer
before he goes away. Hour about it?"

"I'll try. I'm not very good. I do a good many things, you know."

Here, strangely enough, it was the Chancellor who fumbled for his
handkerchief. A vision had come to him of the two of them kneeling side
by side at Etzel, the little lad who was "not very good," and he himself
with his long years behind him of such things as fill a man's life. And
because the open door was not so far ahead for him either, and because
he believed implicitly in the great Record within the Gate, he shook his
shaggy head.

So the pilgrimage was arranged. With due publicity, of course, and due
precaution for safety. By train to the foot of the mountains, and then
on foot for the ten miles to Etzel.

On the next day the Crown Prince fasted, taking nothing but bread and
a cup of milk. On the day of the pilgrimage, however, having been duly
prepared, and mass having been said at daybreak in the chapel, with all
the Court present, he was given a substan