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Half an hour later Larry was in a cell fro toward the hotel, surrounded by Graustark soldiers He had sworn to his friend that he would unearth the loss heard the oath and smiled sadly

At the castle there was depression and relief, grief and joy The royal family, the nobility, even the servants, soldiers and attendants, rejoiced in the stroke that had saved the Princess from a fate worse than death Her preserver's misfortune was deplored deeply; expressions of syh and low The Axphainians were detested--the Prince most of all--and the crime had come as a joy instead of a shock There were, of course, serious coly conditions that were bound to force themselves upon the land The dead man's father would demand the life of his murderer If not Lorry, who? Graustark would certainly be asked to produce the man who killed the heir to the throne of Axphain, or to make reparation--bloody reparation, no doubt

In the privacy of her room the stricken Princess collapsed from the effects of the ordeal Her poor brain had striven in vain to invent ht save the man she loved She had surrendered to the inevitable because there was justice in the claiainst her will she had issued the decree, but not, however, until she had learned that he was in prison and unable to fly the country The hope that delaywas rudely crushed when her uncle inforned the decree as if in a drea hand and broken heart His death warrant! And yet, like all others, she believed hiuilty Guilty for her sake! And this was how she rewarded hie written on every face She walked blindly, numbly to her roo her aunt or the Countess Dagered to theand looked below The Axphainians were crossing the parade ground jubilantly Then came the clatter of a horse's hoof and Captain Quinnox, with the fatal papers in his possession, galloped down the avenue She clutched the curtains distractedly, and, leaning far forward, cried from the open : "Quinnox! Quinnox! Come back! I forbid--I forbid! Destroy those papers! Quinnox!'"

But Quinnox heard not the pitiful wail He rode on, his dark face stamped with pity for the man whose arrest he was to n the papers would have been in her destroying grasp with the speed that co him disappear down the avenue, she threw her hands to her head and sank back with a ht her in his arhtfall before she was fully revived The faithful young Countess clung to her caressingly, lovingly, uttering words of consolation until long after the shades of night had dropped They were alone in the Princess's boudoir, seated together upon the divan, the tired head of the one resting wearily against the shoulder of the other Gentle fingers toyed with the tawny tresses, and a soft voice lulled with its consoling promises of hope Wide and dark and troubled were the eyes of the ruler of Graustark