you my
first attendant, counting on your devotion and prudence. Let this
affair remain a secret between us."

"That makes two," murmured Rachimburg, as he departed with a firm
tread, like a man who neither suffers himself to be cast down by fear
or dazzled by good fortune. He was a strong-minded man.

The next morning the court gazette contained the following lines, in
the form of a letter without signature, in the unofficial part of the
paper:

"A rumor has been spread that the king is thinking of marrying again.
The king knows what he owes to his people, and is always ready to
sacrifice himself for the happiness of his subjects. But the people of
Wild Oats have too much delicacy not to respect a recent affliction.
The king's whole thoughts are fixed on his beloved wife; he hopes the
consolation from time that is at present refused him."

This note threw the court and town in agitation. The young girls
thought the scruples of the prince exaggerated; more than one mother
shrugged her shoulders, and said that the king had vulgar prejudices
worthy only of the common people; but at night there was strife in
every well-ordered household. There was not a wife of any pretensions
to aristocratic birth that did not quarrel with her unworthy spouse
and force him to admit that there was but one heart capable of love,
and but one faithful husband in the whole kingdom, namely, Prince
Charming.

VII

TWO CONSULTATIONS

After so much excitement, the king was seized with a cruel fit of
tedium. To divert himself, he attempted every kind of pleasure; he
hunted, he presided over his council, he went to the play and the
opera, he received all the state corporations with their wives, he
read a Carthaginian novel, and reviewed the troops half a score of
times; but all in vain: an inexorable memory, an ever-present image
left him no rest or peace. The gipsy pursued him even in his dreams;
he saw her, he talked to her, and she listened to him; but, by some
unaccountable fatality, as soon as she raised her mask, Pazza's pale,
sad face always appeared.

The doctor was the only confidant to whom Charming could avow his
remorse, but at his word Wieduwillst burst into laughter.

"The effect of habit, sire," he said. "Gain time, multiply
impressions, and all will be effaced."

To procure the prince excitement and to drive away sorrow by a bold
diversion, the doctor supped every evening alone with His Majesty, and
poured out intoxi