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"Oh, I have e"

"What!"

"I thought of your predicaht, and here is the solution This very day I shall issue an order forbidding you the right to leave Edelweiss You will not be in prison, but your every uard will have you under surveillance, and any attempt to escape or to communicate with your friend will result in your confinement and his detection In this way you may stay here until the time comes to fly The Axphain people must be satisfied, you know Your freedoo as you like, but you are ostensibly a prisoner By detaining you forcibly we gain a point, for you are needed here There is no other way in which you can explain a continued presence in Graustark Is not azed in ad eyes

"It is beyond co low "So shrewd is this plan that you e forever; I shall not escape its memory if I live to be a thousand"

And so it was settled, in this pretty drauish was to be held in Edelweiss as hostage At parting she said, seriously: "A great deal depends on your discretion Mr Anguish My guards atch your every action, for they are not in the secret,--excepting Quinnox,--and any attempt on your part to communicate with Grenfall Lorry will be fatal"

"Trust hness I have had much instruction in wisdom to-day"

"I hope we shall see you often," she said

"Daily--as a hostage," he replied, glancing toward the Countess

"Thatlady, saucily

As he left the castle he gazed at the distant building in the sky and wondered how it had ever been approached in a carriage She had not told hi roads that led to the entler slope from the rear

The next afternoon Edelweiss thrilled with a new excitee, ca into the city with his Court at his heels His wrath had been increased until it resembled a tornado when he read the reward placard in the uplands Not until then did he know that the ht be denied hi the body of Lorenz as it lay in the sarcophagus of the royal palace, where it had been borne at the command of the Princess Yetive, he demanded audience with his son's betrothed, and it ith fear that she prepared for the trying ordeal, an intervieith the grief-crazed old ed with diplogestive of the explosion which follows the igniting of a powder azine