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SOPHY OF KRAVONIA woman! She has taken .advantage of the favor the King showed her."

"And if I died?" asked the King.

Stenovics shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, there would be no control then," said he.

The King looked round. "We must get her away from Praslok."

"Will she come?" jeered the Countess. "Not she! Will he let her go? Not he!"

The King passed his hand weakly across his brow. Then he rang a bell on the table. Lepage entered, and the King bade him bring him the draught which Natcheff had prescribed for his nerves. Well might the unfortunate man feel the need of it, between the Countess's open eruption and the not less formidable calm of Stenovics and Stafnitz! And all his favorite dreams in danger!

"She won't leave him—or he'll follow her. The woman has infatuated him!" the Countess persisted.

"Pray, madame, let me think," said the harassed and sick King. "We must open communications with Baroness Dobrava."

"May I suggest that the matter might prove urgent, sir?" said Stenovics.

"Every hour is full of danger," declared the Countess.

The King held up his hand for silence. Then he took paper and pen, and wrote with his own hand some lines. He signed the document and folded it. His face was now firm and calmer. The peril to his greatest hopes—perhaps a sense of the precarious tenure of his power—seemed to impart to him a new promptness, a decision alien to his normal character. "Colonel Stafnitz!" he said in a tone of command. 210