So they went, escorted by the functionaries of the hospital, past the military wards, where soldiers in shabby uniforms sat on benches in the spring sunshine, to the general wards beyond. The Crown Prince was almost hidden behind the armful he carried. Miss Braithwaite had all she could hold. A convalescent patient, in slippers many sizes too large for him, wheeled the remainder in a barrow, and almost upset the barrow in his excitement.

Through long corridors into wards fresh-scrubbed against his arrival, with white counterpanes exactly square, and patients forbidden to move and disturb the geometrical exactness of the beds, went Prince Ferdinand William Otto. At each bed he stopped, selected a flower, and held it out. Some there were who reached out, and took it with a smile. Others lay still, and saw neither boy nor blossom.

"They sleep, Highness," the nurse would say.

"But their eyes are open."

"They are very weary, and resting."

In such cases he placed the flower on the pillow, and went on.

One such; however, lying with vacant eyes fixed on the ceiling, turned and glanced at the boy, and into his empty gaze crept a faint intelligence. It was not much. He seemed to question with his eyes. That was all. As the little procession moved on, however, he raised himself on his elbow.

"Lie down!" said the man in the next bed sharply.

"Who was that?"

The ward, which might have been interested, was busy keeping its covers straight and in following the progress of the party. For the man had not spoken before.

"The Crown Prince."

The sick man lay back and dosed his eyes. Soon he slept. His comrade in the next bed beckoned to a Sister.

"He has spoken," he said. "Either he recovers, or--he dies."

But again Haeckel did not die. He lived to do his part in the coming crisis, to prove that even the great hands of Black Humbert on his throat were not so strong as his own young spirit; lived, indeed, to confront the Terrorist as one risen from the dead. But that day he lay and slept, by curious irony the flower from Karl's banquet in a cup of water beside him.

On the day before the Carnival, Hedwig had a visitor, none other than the Countess Loschek. Hedwig, all her color gone now, her high spirit crushed, her heart torn into fragments and neatly distributed between Nikky, who had most of it, the Crown Prince, and the old King. Hedwig, having given her permission to come, greeted her politely but without enthusiasm.

"Highness!" said the Countess, surveying her. And then, "You poor child!" using Karl's words, but without the same inflection, using, indeed, the words a good many were using to Hedwig in those days.

"I am very tired," Hedwig explained. "All this fitting, and--everything."

"I know, perhaps better than you think, Highness." Also something like Karl's words. Hedwig reflected with bitterness that everybody knew, but nobody helped her. And, as if in answer to the thought, Olga Loschek came out plainly.

"Highness," she said, "may I speak to you frankly?"

"Please do," Hedwig replied. "Everybody does, anyhow. Especially when it is something disagreeable."

Olga Loschek watched her warily. She knew the family as only the outsider could know it; knew that Hedwig, who would have disclaimed the fact, was like her mother in some things, notably in a disposition to be mild until a certain moment, submissive, even acquiescent, and then suddenly to become, as it were, a royalty and grow cold, haughty. But if Hedwig was driven in those days, so was the Countess, desperate and driven to desperate methods.

"I am presuming, Highness, on your mother's kindness to me, and your own, to speak frankly."

"Well, go on," said Hedwig resignedly. But the next words brought her up in her chair.

"Are you going to allow your life to be ruined?" was what the Countess said.

Careful! Hedwig had thrown up her head and looked at her with hostile eyes. But the next moment she had forgotten she was a princess, and the granddaughter to the King, and remembered only that she was a woman, and terror-stricken. She flung out her arms, and then buried her face in them.

"How can I help it?" she said.

"How can you do it?" Olga Loschek countered. "After all, it is you who must do this thing. No one else. It is you they are offering on the altar of their ambition."

"Ambition?"

"Ambition. What else is it? Surely you do not believe these tales they tell--old wives' tales of plot and counterplot!"

"But the Chancellor--"

"Certainly the Chancellor!" mocked Olga Loschek. "Highness, for years he has had a dream. A great dream. It is not for you and me to say it is not noble. But, to fulfill his dream to bring prosperity and greatness to the country, and naturally, to him who plans it, there is a price to pay. He would have you pay it."

Hedwig raised her face and searched the other woman's eyes.

"That is all, then?" she said. "All this other, this fright, this talk of treason and danger, that is not true?"

"Not so true as he would have you believe," replied Olga Loschek steadily. "There are malcontents everywhere, in every land. A few madmen who dream dreams, like Mettlich himself, only not the same dream. It is all ambition, one dream or another."

"But my grandfather--"

"An old man, in the hands of his Ministers!"

Hedwig rose and paced the floor, her fingers twisting nervously. "But it is too late," she cried at last. "Everything is arranged. I cannot refuse now. They would--I don't know what they would do to me!"

"Do! To the granddaughter of the King. What can they do?"

That aspect of things; to do her credit, had never occurred to Hedwig.

She had seen herself, hopeless and alone, surrounded by the powerful, herself friendless. But, if there was no danger to save her family from?

If her very birth, which had counted so far for so little, would bring her immunity and even safety?

She paused in front of the Countess. "What can I do?" she asked pitifully.

"That I dare not presume to say. I came because I felt--I can only say what, in your place, I should do."

"I am afraid. You would not be afraid." Hedwig shivered. "What would you do?"

"If I knew, Highness, that some one, for whom I cared, himself cared deeply enough to make any sacrifice, I should demand happiness. I rather think I should lose the world, and gain something like happiness."

"Demand!" Hedwig said hopelessly. "Yes, you would demand it. I cannot demand things. I am always too frightened."

The Countess rose. "I am afraid I have done an unwise thing," she said, "If your mother knew--" She shrugged her shoulders.

"You have only been kind. I have so few who really care."

The Countess curtsied, and made for the door. "I must go," she said, "before I go further, Highness. My apology is that I saw you unhappy, and that I resented it, because--"

"Yes?"

"Because I considered it unnecessary."