was maintained in exile. After some years of
silence, during which the heir apparent had reached a marriageable age,
King Stovik sent again to his native land, to that nobleman in fact who
had aided his escape, beseeching that from the maidens of noble birth a
bride should be selected and sent back under the care of the messenger,
who was none other than the faithful servant who had shared all the
tribulations of the royal family. Bribes, threats, and coaxing of still
loyal Krovitzers could not induce the faithful fellow to betray his
master's hiding place. In fact on that, as on all similar embassies, in
the generations that followed, her family bade farewell to their
daughter, knowing not the place of her future home, nor her name,
nothing but that she was to be the consort of their rightful king. So
careful was Stovik in his banishment, that it became a hereditary rule
not to permit the young bride to communicate with her family. Thus only
could the never-dying hatred of Russia be avoided.

"Until my father's time this system has been maintained, always through
the agency of the descendants of that pair of original servants, of whom
Josef is the last. As a little child, I remember him first, when he
came and claimed the hand of one of our most beautiful girls to share
his master's banishment. Then, until recently, we had supposed the Line
had become extinct, for no further missions came. Then he returned and
offered to put a king at the head of our national movement. Nothing
could have been a greater boon. Those who, for years, at all corners of
the earth, had been striving for Krovitch, came flocking to her
standards. Our joy was complete. Do you wonder, Captain Carter," she
said gently, "that we are very lenient to Josef?"

Appreciating the girl's nobility, Carter strove to do justice to the
Gray Man, but as he glanced into the mask-like face a greater repugnance
than aforetimes overcame all generous impulses. He strove to put down
the distrust that he was certain no one present shared with him, for on
every countenance, save that of Sobieska who was gazing idly out of a
window, he read a story of affection for the man who had done this thing
for Krovitch.

"And the new king," he questioned lightly, avoiding the issue raised,
"has he, too, married a maid of Krovitch?"

She crimsoned in manifest confusion. Averting her head for an instant,
she bravely met his glance.

"Not yet," she replied. The signals of her