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COUNTESS LOSCHEK’S SECR
ET MESSAGE CAUSES A LOT
slips away to the park, where he
Thorpe, a little American boy. Re
made for him, The same night t
boy's grandfather, the old king, wh
the terrorists to form a republic,
ringe to King Karl of that country.
to Princess Annunciata,
and plots to prevent his
message to King Karl.
marriage
makes the acquaintance of Bobly
turning to the palace at night, he
esult of the search which has been
he chancellor calls to consult the
o Is very ill. The chancellor sug-
the friendship of the neighboring
Countess Loschek, lady-in-waiting
is In love with King Karl
to Hedwig, She sends a secret
CHAPTER V.—Continued. |
sel pe
“Mother, you cannot look back, and
~—and remember your own life, and al
dow me to be wretched. You can-
wot I”
Hedwig began to cry.
The archduchess hated t
her softer moments were
ments. “Dry your eyes, and
silly,” she said coldly. “You
ways known that something
sort was inevitable.”
She moved toward the
two princesses and her lady
ing remained still until had left |
the table. Then they fell in behind |
her, and the little procession moved to
the stuffy boudoir, for coffee. But
Hilda slipped her arm around her sis-
and the touch mforted |
tal
ears, and
only n
don't be
have al-
of the
1)
The!
in wait-
door.
she
ter's waist,
Hedwig,
“He may be very nice,” Hilda volun. |
teered cautiously, “Perhaps it is Karl
I am quite mad about Karl, myself." |
Hedwig, however, was bevond lis
ing. She went slowly to a window,
and stood gazing out. Looming
the sky-line, in the very center of the
Dlace, was the herole figure of her dead
grandmother. She to wondering
about these royal women
ceded. Her mother, fr
in her marriage,
1
CoO
to
ten-
against
¢
ied
tered; her grandmothe H
ever king young. She cotld
1
not picture him
£
seen the
8 Wer.
fine and lonely f
Had he ever t
*} alivir
ae Sly ped
nino
nna
As
closed the
Lier eves ores
or did
1 Came
|
old
we is f
footsteps,
nls } %
salute the
f heels
*1
Guie
stone pavement,
knew even as she
knew every vibrant, eager inflection of
his He ¥. across the
squa one who, havi
nee to a saint, turns bac
of the world,
boudoir the archd:
voice, went an
re, like
*
ing ¢
ng
“You
knits
a
nay
and Hilda
reus
dozed,
countess’ of
vn
hich
venings, ar
She
no
:
put down the dreary
she filled
id moved to
walked quietly,
wit the
the
a
3
i
like
were
linked
i down
5 '
& EALICSS,
ised her ey i to the stars,
ovely.'
to ttf 414
in.
She
spend ot POTS,
being shut up ne
sentence with a shirug of
fond of the count |
why. The
between
own in-
arm
not
not know
that
her
countess
of
barrier of
When the
she drew aside.
said the lady in
“I should like to
pereding over mount
course,
waiting
be in a
in roads,
mountains, you know. |
ned 1 them,”
Hedwig moved, a little top tie
but as the countess wont
tened. After all, Nikky,
from the mountains,
wins sorry for
homesick, and perhaps because just
then had to speak to one, |
ele turned to her at last with the thing |
that filled her mind,
“This marriage,” she said bitterly,
“Is it iilked about? Am I the
one In the palace who hans not
mbout it?”
“No, highness, I had heard nothing,
[Of course, there are always rumors,”
“As to the other, the matte
#
from the
ntly,
lige
came
And because she
wns
on, she
foe,
the countess, who
she SOE
"
only |
Known
r my
mother referred to,” Hedwig held her
very high, “I—she was unjust,
Am I never to have any friends?”
“Friends, highness? One may have
“What then?”
YA lover,” said the countess softly.
“It is impossible to see Captain Lar-
lsch in your presence, and not
realize—""
“Go
on.”
is in love with you.”
“How silly!
wig, with glowing eyes,
“But highness!" implored the count-
“it you would use a
caution. Open defiance Is its own de-
feat.”
“TI an
P88,
not ashamed of what I do.”
Hedwig hotly,
“Ashamed ! Of course not. But
things that are harmless in others In
your you are young. You
should friends, gayety. I am,”
position
have
in the «
but that I can
ig stood still. The old city was
preparing for In the a
" lovers loitered, standing close, and
tinkling of a bell told of the
Sacrament arried
sleep. place
being «
treets to some bedside of
The Princess Hedwig
i
ell
chance have
11
5
sked scornfu
course, 1
before He
"hen she turn
hen I wish to
she sald col
.
is
hall do i
She lef
openly, countess.”
t the balcony abruptly, aban-
the countess to solitary fury,
triumph had
Alone, she went red
doning
the greater because
seemed
and white, bit
cording to all
ditions, And
lady-in-waiting
fo get even.
. *
RO
near.
the
even
time-honored tra-
|SWore
fashion, to be
» *
Things were
Nikky Larisch.
Perhaps, at
been in love with the princess, not the
woman. It had
fix on the
ship it from a
to
unattainable
~
and
f
AAA AVILA Sessa an
YW a Wa
{things over. Probably never before in
his life had he deliberately done such
a thing. He had never, a3 a fact,
{ thought much at all. It had been his
| comfortable habit to let the day take
| care of Itself, leyond minor prob-
{lems of finance—
{come was trifling
little. In the last
he
border war he had
a matter of doing, not of thinking.
|
| But he was young, and the
was crisp and beautiful. He took
After all, things might not be so bad.
| Hedwig might refuse this
{ They were afraid that she would, or
{ why have asked his help? When he
{ thought of King Karl, he drew himself
up, and his heels rang hard on the
pavement, Karl! A
good king—that was Karl. And old.
{ From the full manhood of his twenty-
| most forty, and considered it age.
It was typical
| that he needed
transiated most
i motion. So he
{Ing Into the crowded
And here It was
pened on the thing t
{him far that night,
{many curious things.
jof him two men were
vent slowly, erm in
| talking loquaciously,
arm, on which hung =a
[ulate. The other walked
{ head.
{ Nikky, pausing to
| fell behind, But the
with his third
{into a stone archway, lighted
| cigarette, buttoned iis tunle
the chill, and emerged
hard He
his into
off briskly, turn-
walk.
motions
a
of
set
that Nikky hap-
hat was to
nnd bring about
Not far ahead
They
or take
talking.
arm, One was
using his free
cane, to gestic.
with bent
ight a clgarette,
wind was tricky,
{and match he stepped
high
i against to a
The
three
two men had
others, and
loquacious one wer
0 been attacked by
as he stared, the
down, Instantly
ntiined again
outlined against
it
n huge figure of a ma
| the light from a street lamp, crouched
form of the fallen
frog ble sec-
ward
*3
the si
na
over the prostrate
n. Even In the
ond before he started
e group, Nikky saw
one, unmolested, was ing on.
A moment In he : in the thick
th tin gloriously. His
r
#4 reepti
to run
that
t)
pe
f +}
o fic
ings and figh
dierly cap fell
bristled with exel
19 that
ng, and with es
umed a new {i
arn wore
ASE
the prostrate
{ fist.
| Down we
| The
pwere not
neigh Hungaria,
roused grumbled
students, and slept again.
Perhaps two minutes
He was
himscif,
nt Nikky, still
town slept on.
uncommon,
rhood of the
and lay i
Street br
Those
who
Some
t up. another minute in lo-
His cap lay in
Ri
cating
Hedwig was still a whose
touched him, but whose warmth
for him. He would have dled
ting for her with a smile on his
A ut he had no hope of living
r her, unless, of course, she should
mppen to need him, which was most
unlikely. He had no vanity whatever,
although in parade dress, with white
gloves, he hoped he cut a decent figure,
So she had been his star, and as cold
nnd remote, And then, that very
morning, Hedwig had been thrown.
Not badly-—she was too expert for
that. As a matter of fact feeling her
self going, she had flung two strong
young around her htrse's neck,
and had almost succeeded In lighting
on her feet, It was not at all
dramntie,
But Nikky's heart had stopped beat-
ing. He had lifted her up from swhere
sat, half vexed and wholly
ashamed, and earried her to a chair.
That was all. But when it was all
over, and Hedwig was only a trifle
and horribly humiliated,
Nikky Larisch knew the truth about
himself, knew that he wis in love
star,
wns
figh
lipa
¢
1
I
0)
Arms
stunces would he ever be able to tell
Knew, then, that happiness
thereafter travel different
So that night he started out to think
»
In the Thick of Things and Fighting
Gloriously.
gutter. Beside him, on his back, lny
a sprawling and stertorous figure,
with, so quick the downfall, a cane
still hooked to his arm.
Nikky bent over FPeter Niburg.
lending over made his head ache
abominably,
“Here, man!” he said. “Get up!
Rouse yourself!”
Peter Niburg made an inarticulate
reference to a plece of silk of certain
quality, and lay still, X3ut his eyes
opened slowly, and he stared «up at
the stars, “A fine night,” he sald
thickly. “A very fine Suddenly he
raised himself to a sitting posture,
Terror gave him stren-th. “I've been
robbed,” he said, “Robbed, I am
ruined. TI am dead.”
“Tut,” sald Nikky,
Hp. “If you are dead, your spirit
spenks with an uncommonly lusty
volce! Come, get up. We present to-
gether a shameful pleture of defent.”
jut he raised Peter Niburg gently
from the ground and, finding his knees
unstable, from fright or weakness,
stood him against a house wall. Peter
Niburg, with rolling eves, felt for his
letter, and, the saints he praised,
found ft,
“Ah! he said, and straightened up.
“After all, it Is not go bad as I feared.
They got nothing.”
He made a manful
| but tottered, reeled,
effort to
Nikky
walk,
caught
him.
“Careful!” he sald.
{ wns doubtless the
both, and we are
weight for some time,
live?”
Peter Niburg was not for
He would have preferred to pursue hi
ut Nikky
Toward Peter
they made
“The colossns
who got
to feel his
Where do you
one
likely
saying.
“
olitary if uncertain way.
was no half Samaritan.
Niburg's lodging, then,
slow progress,
“These recent gentlemen,” said Nik
ky, as they went
haps, personal enemies?”
Peter Niburg reflected. He thought
(not, “But I know why they came,” he
| sald unguardedly,
ing, my friend, you will hear of a man
dead In the street. That man
rr
1 thought has a moral,” observed
“Do not trust yourself out-of-
ors at night”
But he saw that Peter Niburg kept
his hand over his breast pocket.
Never having dealt in mysteries
Nikky w= slow at recognizing
But, he reflected, many things were
going on in the old city in these trou-
bled days. Came to Nikky, all at once,
“Some early morn
ye
8 = One,
that this man on his arm might be one
| of the idden eyes of government.
“These are difficult times,” he ven-
tured, “for those who are loyal.”
Peter Niburg gave him a sidelong
ance, “Difficult indeed”
h
gl
briefly
“I think,” Nikky observed,
after I see yon safely home, I
this small matter to the poli
here Peter Nil
“Not-—-not the
sred,
“But wv? Yo nd I, my
will carry
I have a
Petor
{ped and
the police,” he said, “Perhaps
“that,
shall
report
But
paler.
stam
Irg turned ev
—
police he
friend,
ia for some days.
mind to pay our debts.”
Nin ed. He stop-
faced Nikky. “I do not wish
' I have
a private mat-
1 onsider
well” But
icion.
He
sy
Nikky assented.
WAR rising
mbled on
stupidity
stopped.
friend must
would escape”
sis eens Frsller
rks and r
“Good night to
Then, rathe
But
10g
igged
othe
{ f city.
"said Peter Nib
“And my
you I should now—" he shn
shoulders,
{ “Good night, friend,” sald Nikky.
| “And better keep your bed tomorrow.”
| He had turned away and Peter Ni-
burg entered the house.
Nikky inspected himself in the glow
{of a street lamp.
and a s
he Well
enough, anyhow, for the empty streets.
But bef he looked the
{ house and the neighborhood over care-
fully. He might wish to return to that
| house,
For two hours he walked, and re.
ur
thanks,
wol
ROP, was not unpresentable,
re started he
| At last, having almost circled the city,
! he to the Cathedral. It was
nearly midnight by the clock in the
high tower. He stopped and consulted
his watch.
up the high steps, and look out over
the city from the colonnade,
Once there, he stood leaning against
a column, looking out. There was
someone coming along the quiet
streets, with a stealthy, shuffling gait
that caught hls attention. So, for in-
stance, might a weary or a wounded
man drag along. Exactly so, indeed,
had Peter Niburg shambled into his
house but two hours gone,
The footsteps paused, hesitated,
commenced a painful struggle up the
ascent, Nikky moved behind his col-
umn, and waited, Up and up, weary
step after weary step. The shadowy
figure, coming close, took a form, be-
came a man-became Peter Niburg.
Now, indeed, Nikky roused. Beaten
and sorely bruised, Peter Niburg
should have been in bed.
stealthy business of the night brought
him out?
Fortunately for Nikky's hiding place,
the last step or two proved too much
for the spy. He groaned, and eat
down painfully, pear the top, His
head lolled forward, and he supported
it on two shaking hands. Thus he sat,
huddled and miserable, for five mip-
uted or thereabouts, The chime rang
came
out the hour,
®
pe ~
At ten minutes past the hour, Nikky
henrd the engine of an automobile,
No machine came In sight, but the
throbbing kept on, from which he
judged that a car had been stopped |
around the corner, Peter Niburg heard
it, and rose. A moment later a man,
with the springiness of youth, mounted
the steps and confronted the messen- |
ger,
Nikky saw a great light.
| Peter Niburg put his hand to his
| breast pocket, there was no longer |
{ room for doubt, nor, for that matter,
{time for thinking. As a matter of |
{ fact, never afterward could Nikky re- |
call thinking at all. He moved away
quietly, hidden by the shadows of the |
| colonnade. Behind him, on the steps, |
the two men were talking. Absorbed
in themselves and their business
neither heard nor saw the figure
| slipped through the « , and
| dropped, a blood curdlir 2 di wp, fre
| the high end of it to the street
low,
Nikky's first impulse, be
ire Iv
tire, ’¥
When
they i
that
donnade
m
be
id
getting his op-
posi
over
e the car,
Wis to cut a
into a tion,
ponent
the damaged
$ tooping
wheel, it
driver acts from the spina) cord, and
not from the bralp. Therefore his
brain may be seething with a thousand
frenzies, but he wiil shove out clutch
and brake feet in an emergency, and
hold them out,
So It happened. The man's hands
ar,
Not before it had struck
f
Not too goon.
curve out toward the edge of
But stop It did, on the
eternity,
the
very
of and the chauffeur
edge
“Bet the hand brake!” Nikky said,
The chauffeur ceased struggling
set the hand brake. His head was
But having done that
commenced a struggle
than forceful, for
}
and
tiny
he
furious
both of them
#
more
were
andicapped,
And now Nikk fore
at |
the dri
strength,
ie
to forget, For
unexpected
the
himself
courage
veloped
to submit,
ind
got
seeing
He
besid
at Niki
after a
1 31
only, took
pick
le hi ane
«1 up a wren
11 i $47
1
1
5 head.
stru
the
then Nikky raised
and stunned hi
tef
v1}
iti.
seeured
over
8 in the
It was
wren
It was ha
of It
bad
5 man
very dull
And there
when
ent. Th
his seat, a
human flesh
busines
g, was horrified.
The chauffeur wakened, ten ming
later, to find himself securely
his
tremely close
was sicker
siry or
ing
minute or tw he
in word
whose 8, in a way,
own towin
doald
‘ Im on or
3 ie him on the Bre
eyed young man wi
young man had Ii
it ]
«1 side of his oouth,
“Just
ord 4
zi
carefull;
as
BOOND a8 yo
hail
$d
A Sentry Stepped Into the Road.
a has
wt his
jut
revealed that he had I
th And sect
fn better plan.
letter not
know its destination woul
tant. He had no time to
er, The messenger
to overcome him.
nd the
After
everyth ng.
1 be impor.
think
e melee,
the was
far.
+1
lown the ste Ds
1
losr *th
% ng 12 into the
re cron
1
the
to «
disliked
ead. He |
yor
OR
After a time he raised
de out that they
toward the mountains,
the luck that had left his
Still he had no plan
Two hours’ ride, at the!
lent rate, would take ther
border and into Karnia. |
With a squealing of brakes the wa)
chine drew up at Here
in across the highway, with
8 of guards. Long before they
reached it, a sentry stepped into the |
road and waved his lantern. |
were east, |
and he
£2
Rr
cursed
home,
{ watch,
the frontier.
was a cha
two set
Nikky burrowed lower into the car, |
{and atte mpted to look like a rug. In|
the silence, while the sentry evidently |
ned a passport and flashed a
lantern over auffeur, Nikky
cursed the ticking his watch, the |
| beating of his own rt. |
Then came a ¢l g as the chain |
| dropped in the road. The car bumped |
| over it, and halted again. The same
{ formalities, this time by Karnian
sentries, Then the jerk following a
| hasty letting-in of the clutch, and they |
were off again,
For some time they climbed steadily,
| But Nikky, who knew the road. bided
| his time. Then at last, at two o'clock.
came the steep ascent to the very |
crest of the mountain, and a falling
back, gear hy gear, until they climbed
slowly In the lowest.
Nikky unfolded his length quietly.
The gears were grinding, the driver
bent low over his wheel. Very de
liberately, now that he knew what he
was going to do, Nikky unbuttoned his
tunic and slipped it off. It was a rash
thing, this plan he had in mind, rash
under any circumstances, in a moving
car-partienlarly rash here, where be.
tween the cliff and a precipice that
fell far away below, was only a wind.
ing ribbon of uneven road.
Nikky, he waited his moment, and
then, with one singularly efficient ges
ture, he flung his tunic over the
chauffeur's head. He drove a car
himself, did Nikky-not his own, of
course; he was far too poor—and he
counted on one thing—en automobile
ch
f
O
hea
+4 wy
The chauffeur muttered
is of Kar
you are
The
e letter aga
dressed t 2a border town
But the town lay far bel
address, then, was a foals
istied softly.
Nikky fierce?
He look
swollen lip did ths
ne
t silN
His
was nervous, It occurres
that his prisoner, in
ht roll over the edge h
uncomf
desperatie
mself, whic
would be most mfortable,
But the precipice, and Nikky's fierce
lip, and other things, had got in their
work. The man on the ground stopped
muttering In his patois, and turned on
Nikky eyes full of hate.
“I will tell you.” he sald
will free me. And after
“Certainly,” Nikky replie
“You will follow me
though
1g will not
esary, because { intend to
there—and finish me off.” Then
ly: “Now, where does the letter po?
I have a fancy for delivering it my-
self.”
“If I tell you, what then?”
“This: If you tell me properly, and
all goes well, I will return and release
you. If I do not ret: naturally youn
will not be released. And for fear
you meditate a treachery, | shall gag
you and leave you, not here, but back
a short distance, in the wood we just
passed. And, because you are a brave
man, and this thing may be less seri-
ous than I think it is, I give you my
word of honor that if you advise ne
correctly, 1 shall return and liberate
you."
“I have only your word”
"And I yours,” said Nikky,
The chauffeur took a final glance
around, as far as he could seo, nnd a
final shuddering look at the valley of
the Ar, far below. *T will tell you,” he
said sullenly,
" — mo —
The crown prince and Prin.
cess Hedwig wait in vain for the
return of Nikky, whose disap.
pearance they are unable to on.
derstand. Watch Tor the next
instaliment.
nec
gtern-
ws
ith,