Talbot, Senior, tired of reading, was now dozing peacefully in an
easy chair on the other side of the cot. The day had been warm; but the
evening air brought with it the crisp touch of autumn, and Joan was
about to summon Pauline, who--with honorable mention of the unchanging
Bosko--had solved for the young couple the most perplexing problem of
American life,--when the click of the garden gate caught her ear and she
heard her husband's firm step. He stooped and kissed her.

"I hope you have passed the whole day in the garden, sweetheart," he
said.

"Yes," she replied, "I was just going to send baby indoors. Will you
tell Pauline it is time he was in bed; but do not disturb your mother.
She's asleep."

"Baby can wait one minute," he said. "He looks quite contented where he
is. There is news from Delgratz," he added in a lower voice. "King
Michael is dead."

An expression of real sympathy swept across Joan's beautiful face. "I am
sorry to hear that," she said. Then, with the innate desire of every
high-minded woman to find good where there seems to be naught but evil,
she added, "Perhaps, when he reached the throne, he may have mended his
ways and striven to be a better man. Did he die suddenly?"

"Yes," and a curious inflection in Alec's voice caused his wife to
glance anxiously toward the sleeping woman.

"Was there a tragedy?" she whispered.

"Something of the sort. The details are hardly known yet, and the
telegrams published in our Denver newspapers are not quite explicit.
There is an allusion to a disturbance in a local theater, during which
the heir apparent, Count Julius Marulitch, was fatally stabbed."

"Oh!" gasped Joan.

"It would seem that this incident took place several days ago, but
escaped notice in the American press at the time. Attention is drawn to
it now by the fact that King Michael was found dead in his apartments at
an early hour yesterday morning, and it is rumored that he was
poisoned."

"How dreadful!" she gasped. "It will shock your mother terribly when she
hears of it."

"It is an odd feature of the affair," went on Alec, "that the telegram
describes the King as residing in the New Konak. I suppose he passed the
summer months there, and had not yet returned to Delgratz. Delightful as
the place was, I am glad now we never lived there, Joan."

She rose and caught him by the arm. "Alec," she murmured, "Heaven was
very good to us in sending us away from that Inferno! You never regre