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 hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind.

"But the letter comes before all," said he. "I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter."

"I know you will," said I.

He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room.

"The carriage is at the door, sir," said he.

"Look after the count, James," said Rudolf. "Don't leave him till he sends you away."

"Very well, sir."

I raised myself in bed.

"Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it.

"Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug. And he was gone to his work and his reward—to save the queen's letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda. (To be continued.)

 by Robert Barr

He was the most powerful man in all the Alf-thal, and few could lift the iron sledge-hammer which he wielded as if it were a toy. Arras had twelve sons, scarcely less stalwart than himself, some of whom helped him in his occupation of blacksmith and armorer, while the others tilled the ground near by, earning from the rich soil of the valley what sustenance the whole family needed. The blacksmith heard, coming up the valley of the Alf, the hoof-beats of a horse; and his quick, experienced ear told him, distant though the animal yet was, that one of its shoes was loose. As the hurrying rider came within call, the blacksmith shouted to him in stentorian tones: "Friend, pause a moment, until I fasten again the shoe on your horse's foot."

"I cannot stop," was the brief answer.

"Then your animal will go lame," rejoined the blacksmith.

"Better lose the horse than an empire," replied the rider, hurrying on.

"Now what does that mean?" said the blacksmith to himself, as he watched the disappearing rider, while the click, click of the loosened shoe became fainter and fainter in the distance.

If the blacksmith could have followed the rider into Castle Bertrich, a short distance farther up the valley, he would speedily have learned the meaning of the hasty phrase the horseman had flung behind him as he rode past.

Ascending the winding road which led to the gates of the castle as hurriedly as the jaded condition of his beast would permit, the horseman paused, unloosed the horn from his belt, and blew a blast that echoed from the wooded hills all around. Presently an officer appeared