id the Duchess, "she might have died happily on that
miserable island. I am sure we did all we could to bring it about by
steaming away from the place with the plague chasing after us. Dear me,
how diabolically those wretches lied to the Marquess. They said that
every one in the chateau was dead, Lady Deppingham--and buried, if I am
not mistaken."

The party was dining with one of the Prince Lichtensteins in the Hotel
Bristol after a drive in the Haupt-Allee.

"My dog, I think, was the only one of us who died, Duchess," said Lady
Agnes airily. "And he was buried. They were that near to the truth."

"It would be much better for poor Genevra if she were to be buried
instead of married next week," lamented the Duchess.

"My dear, how ridiculous. She isn't dead yet, by any manner of means.
Why bury her? She's got plenty of life left in her, as Karl Brabetz will
learn before long." Thus spoke the far-sighted Marchioness, aunt of the
bride-to-be. "It's terribly gruesome to speak of burying people before
they are actually dead."

"Other women have married princes and got on very well," said Prince
Lichtenstein.

"Oh, come now, Prince," put in Lord Deppingham, "you know the sort of
chap Brabetz is. There are princes and princes, by Jove."

"He's positively vile!" exclaimed the Duchess, who would not mince
words.

"She's entering upon a hell of a--I mean a life of hell," exploded the
Duke, banging the table with his fist. "That fellow Brabetz is the
rottenest thing in Europe. He's gone from bad to worse so swiftly that
public opinion is still months behind him."

"Nice way to talk of the groom," said the host genially. "I quite agree
with you, however. I cannot understand the Grand Duke permitting it to
go on--unless, of course, it's too late to interfere."

"Poor dear, she'll never know what it is to be loved and cherished,"
said the Marchioness dolefully.

Lord and Lady Deppingham glanced at each other. They were thinking of
the man who stood on the dock at Aratat when the _King's Own_ sailed
away.

"The Grand Duke is probably saying the very thing to himself that
Brabetz's associates are saying in public," ventured a young Austrian
count.

"What is that, pray?"

"That the Prince won't live more than six months. He's a physical wreck
to-day--and a nervous one, too. Take my word for it, he will be a
creeping, imbecile thing inside of half a year. Locomotor ataxia and all
that. It's coming, positively, with a