* * * * *

When the force of his outburst was spent, Sir Paul Verdayne mastered himself resolutely.  There was much to be done.  It was indeed a double torture to find such an affliction here, of all places under Heaven, but he told himself that his Queen would have him brave and strong, and master his grief as an English gentleman should.  And her wishes were still, as they had ever been, the guide of his every thought and action.

One thing he was determined upon.  The world must never know the truth.

To be sure, Sir Paul himself did not know the secret of that one day.  He could only surmise.  Even Vasili did not know.  The Boy had cleverly managed to have the day, as he had the preceding one, “all to himself,” as he had informed Vasili, and Opal had been equally skillful in escaping the attendance of her maid.  They had left the hotel separately at night, in different directions, returning separately at night.  Who was there to suspect that they had passed the day together, or had even met each other at all?  Surely—­no one!

And what was there for the world to know, in the mystery of their death?  Nothing!  They were each found alone, stabbed to the heart, and the dagger that had done the deed had not even been withdrawn from the body of the Boy, when they found him.  Sir Paul and Vasili had recognized it, but who would dare to insinuate that the same dagger had drunk the blood of the young American lady, or to say whose hand had struck either blow?  It was all a mystery, and Sir Paul was determined that it should remain so.

Money can accomplish anything, and though all Europe rang with the story, no scandal—­nor hint of it—­besmirched the fair fame of the unhappy Boy and girl who had loved “not wisely, but too well!”

There had, indeed, been for them, as they had playfully said—­“No to-morrow!”

And Sir Paul Verdayne, kneeling by the bier, with its trappings of a kingdom’s mourning, which hid beneath its rich adornment all the joy that life for twenty years had held for him, felt for the first time a sense of guilt, as he looked back upon his past.

He did not regret his love.  He could never do that!  Truly, a man and a woman had a right to love and mate as they would, if the consequences of their deeds rested only upon their own heads.  But to bring children into the world, the fruit of such a union, to suffer and die, “for the sins of the fathers,” as his son had suffered and died—­there was the sin—­a selfish, unpardonable sin!  “And the wages of sin is death.”

He had never felt the truth before.  He had been so happy in his Boy, and so proud of his future, that there had never been a question in his mind.  But now he was face to face with the terrible consequences.

“Oh, God!” he cried, “truly my punishment is just—­but it is greater than I can bear!”

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