“Let me play the exit for the villains?” he pleaded unctuously. “The old fiddle is just bursting with tunes.”
“You shall, Strings,” replied his Majesty, “and on a Cremona. From to-day, you lead the royal orchestra.”
“Odsbud,” cried Strings, gleefully, “I can offer Jack Hart an engagement.”
“Just retribution, Strings,” laughed Nell, happily. “Can you do as much for Nell, and forgive her, Sire?”
“It is I who should ask your pardon, Nell,” exclaimed the King, ecstatically, throwing both arms passionately about her. “You are Charles’s queen; you should be England’s.”
So the story ends, as all good stories should, in a perfect, unbroken dream of love.
EPILOGUE
Spoken by Miss Crosman for the first time in New York at the Bijou Theatre on the evening of October 9, 1900: