which his
interests were bound up.

"We quarreled--it was all my fault--and then one day he was killed in a
mine accident, and I, scarce knowing what I was doing, fled to New York
for distraction from my grief and self condemnation. My son was born
there, and in that same year I met Prince Michael Delgrado in a friend's
house. To me in those days a Prince was a wonderful creature. He quickly
saw that I was a prize worth capturing, and not many months elapsed
before we were married. I had all the foolish vanity of a young woman,
unused to the world, who was entitled to call herself a Princess, and it
seemed to my flighty mind that the fact of my son bearing a different
name to my own would always advertise my plebeian origin; for I was
quite a woman of the people, the daughter of a storekeeper in Pueblo. I
cast aside my old and tried acquaintances, placed my affairs in
trustworthy hands, and, when we set up an establishment in Paris, my
infant son came to be known as a Prince of the Delgrado family.

"Once such a blunder is made it is not easily rectified; but during many
a sad hour have I regretted it, for Michael Delgrado did not scruple to
use it as a threat whenever I resented his ill conduct. At first a
trivial thing, in time it became a millstone round my neck. As Alec grew
up, it became more and more difficult to announce that he was not Prince
Alexis Delgrado, but a simple commoner, Alexander Talbot by name.

"There, then, you have the measure of my transgression. It was the
knowledge of the truth that drove that dear girl, Joan Vernon, from
Delgratz this evening, because General Stampoff would not scruple to
reveal the imposture if he failed to secure the King's adherence to his
projects."

"God's bones!" broke in Stampoff. "I made him King, though I was aware
from the day of your wedding that he was not Michael's son. King he is,
and King he will remain if he agrees to my terms."

"Go on with your story, mother," said Alec softly. "I think I am
beginning to understand now."

"What more need I say?" wailed the Princess in a sudden access of grief.
"I have squandered your love, Alec, I have ruined my own life, I have
devoted all these wretched years to a man who is the worst sort of
blackmailer,--a husband who trades on his wife's weakness."

She turned on Prince Michael with a last cry. "I am done with you now
forever!" she sobbed. "I have borne with you for my son's sake; but now
you and I must dwell ap