young man, taking a wife who did not love
him. He saw the King madly in love with his wife, and turning to
excesses to forget her. Then, and for this the old priest thanked the
God who was so real to him, he saw the Queen bear children, and turning
to her husband because he was their father. They had lived to love
deeply and' truly.

Then had come the inevitable griefs. The Queen had died, and had been
saved a tragedy, for Hubert had been violently done to death. And now
again a tragedy had come, but one the King would never know.

The two Sisters of Mercy stood beside the bed, and looked down at the
quiet figure.

"I should wish to die so," whispered the elder. "A long life, filled
with many deeds, and then to sleep away!"

"A long life, full of many sorrows!" observed the younger one, her eyes
full of tears. "He has outlived all that he loved."

"Except the little Otto."

Their glances met, for even here there was a question.

As if their thought had penetrated the haze which is, perhaps, the mist
that hides from us the gates of heaven, the old King opened his eyes.

"Otto!" he said. "I--wish--"

Annunciata bent over him. "He is coming, father," she told him, with
white lips.

She slipped to her knees beside the bed, and looked up to Doctor
Wiederman with appealing eyes.

"I am afraid," she whispered. "Can you not--?"

He shook his head. She had asked a question in her glance, and he
had answered. The Crown Prince was gone. Perhaps the search would be
successful. Could he not be held, then, until the boy was found? And
Doctor Wiederman had answered "No."

In the antechamber the Council waited, standing and without speech. But
in an armchair beside the door to the King's room the Chancellor sat,
his face buried in his hands. In spite of precautions, in spite of
everything, the blow had fallen. The Crown Prince, to him at once son
and sovereign, the little Crown Prince, was gone. And his old friend,
his comrade of many years, lay at his last hour.

Another regiment left the Palace, to break ranks beyond the crowd,
and add to the searchers. They marched to a muffled drum. As the sound
reached him, the old warrior stirred. He had come to this, he who
had planned, not for himself, but for his country. And because he was
thinking clearly, in spite of his grief, he saw that his very ambition
for the boy had been his undoing. In the alliance with Karnia he had
given the Terrorists a scourge to flay the peopl