“Says nothing,” the archbishop answered, “a way with her when troubled.”
“And my old friend, Lord Fitzgerald?”
The prelate shook his head sadly. “We have just been made acquainted with his death. God rest his kindly soul.”
The king sank deeper into his pillows.
“But we shall hear from his son within a few days,” continued the prelate, taking the king's hand in his own. “My son, cease to worry. Alexia's future is in good hands. I have confidence that the public debt will be liquidated on the twentieth.”
“Or renewed,” said the chancellor. “Your Majesty must not forget that Prince Frederick sacrifices his own private fortune to adjust our indebtedness. That is the wedding gift which he offers to her Highness. One way or the other, we have nothing to fear.”
“O!” cried the king, “I had forgotten that magnanimity. His disappearance is no longer a mystery. He is dead.”
His auditors could not repress the start which this declaration caused them to make.
“Sire,” said the chancellor, quietly, “princes are not assassinated these days. Our worry is perhaps all needless. The prince is young, and sometimes youth flings off the bridle and runs away. But he loves her Highness, and the Carnavians are not fickle.”
The prelate and the statesman had different ideas in regard to the peasant girl. To the prelate a woman was an unknown quantity, and he frowned. The statesman, who had once been young, knew a deal about woman, and he smiled.