Part 28 (1/2)

”Oh,” she cried furiously, shrinking back from him, ”how have you dareddared?”

”To save your Majesty? Well, it _was_ hard!” he acknowledged practically ”Harder than you will ever believe I may say that no decision was ever more difficult to make To be so trusted by you, and to feel reeable, but the issue was a warrant for any treachery”

”Great heavens!” she exclaiave _you_ leave to decide my fate, what a fool I was to trust you--what a fool! You have spoiledin the world”

If she had been alone he knew she would have wept, and he kept his face turned from her for some few seconds ”I have certainly established a precedent for myself,” he mused with humor ”_I_ can never run aith a woman now--never”

Se she found means to walk it up and down several ti

She spoke, he supposed, in Poltavian, for he could not follow the nise a the incoherences that she called hirew farm-like and pastoral, and the lines and sweep of what he took to be park property, caught his eyes he once more ventured to speak

”I am not the cold-blooded traitor I seem, believe me,” he tried to plead, ”and until we definitely passed the station at Redleigh Bucks I was miserable to think I had, as it seems, betrayed your Majesty But when as we ca on the platfor!” she exclaimed incredulously

Bulstrode nodded in a s on mid-country platfor experiences

”He had evidently followed you that far, and if the plan fore to the Dover express had been attempted, you would have been stopped by your husband hi where you are expected to go--to Westboro' Castle”

This denoueer, left her no place for ecstatics She sat down in front of Bulstrode and repeated, dazed:--

”The _King_! The King had followed me! He had been warned then, but by wholad to be honestly able to disclai to do with it The King had co, the da's”

And sitting there, bewildered and appealing before him, she heard him say: ”I mean Lord Almouth Gresthaven”

She ht: ”Why, why do you play with me?” The tears started to her eyes

”Lord Gresthaven,” Bulstrode hurried now to his confession--”has plainly betrayed you Either he failed to ht better of his connivance against your husband--at all events, both he and the King took the slow train”

”But _you_,” she interrupted, staring at him--”You are not Lord Gresthaven?”

”No,” he said quietly, ”no, I auest of the Duke of Westboro' I tried over and over again to tell you this, but you would not hear aveyou with me to Westboro' Castle My name is James Thatcher Bulstrode, I am from Boston, in the United States” Bulstrode thus tardily introduced hireatly on the favor of princes, was nevertheless taken aback Not that he had any preconceived notion of what Carda would do--when she eventually knew He had been too absorbed in his lements, and his climax He may have been prepared for some exhibition of scorn, but heto their ride, but for what Carda did he was entirely unprepared

As if in his declaration of hie and quite wiped hi at him for a few ether She took froe stick hich she carefully touched her lips; frohtly dusted her cheeks with powder; she adjusted her tulle bow and her veil and then sat serenely back waiting until the train should arrive at her forced destination

Although, one ht say, unused to the manners of royalty, Jimmy was dumbfounded; the beautiful woreen had becoe to him as in the first moment when she attracted his attention sory at his interference he could adrateful to be saved from her husband's wrath he did not understand Was he too plebeian for her to notice? He, of course, did not speak to her again, nor did she break the singular silence, and for soiveness Finally, he decided that she was thinking solely of Gela, the man at the other end of the route ould wait for her in vain, and when this sentimental view of the case occurred to him, he would have felt _de trop_ had he not seen how conored

They flashed past the last miles of wooded valley and hillside

Westboro' was very soft in line and very h a half-reen as the dress of the beautiful silent woe

Bulstrode, looking at her rather timidly, felt as if he were in a dreauard unlocked the coot out first, helped the Queen of Poltavia to descend