"You are mistaken, Nick," I said. "The Prince did lose his nerve and made a terrible mess of the whole affair. Instead of accepting the inevitable—of standing pat as it were—he revealed a secret which he should have kept, and to-day his father and he stand in the shadow of the valley of death."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember the vague suspicions of General Palmora which we talked of coming over on the boat and which you scoffed at as absurd?"
"Something concerning the remarkable likeness existing between Solonika and her twin brother, coupled with the suggestion that the two had never been seen together? But, you, yourself, told me you exploded that theory."
"The more I see of General Palmora the greater grows my respect for him and his opinions. We laughed at him when he told us that King Gregory was planning to make capital out of your flirtation with Princess Teskla. But we now know he was right. We also laughed at him when he told us he suspected there was only one child born to the House of Dhalmatia the night he and your father rode. But again he is right."
"Speak plainly, Dale," said Nick with contracting brows, "you mean—"
"That the midwife who died announced the truth when she tolled the bell seven times!"
Nick's hands gripped the edge of the white cloth; his eyes stared into mine with a look I could not fathom. Slowly he arose, his overturned chair falling with a crash to the floor. I, too, came reluctantly to my feet, not knowing what to expect, but desiring to be ready for any emergency.
"A daughter!" he cried, as if he could not believe it. "A daughter and no son! Then the person who was made King of Bharbazonia to-day is a—woman?"
Amazement deepened upon his face as the full significance of my words came home to him. It was a condition of affairs which he had always refused to countenance, and his brain worked slowly. But it was too absurd.