Von Ritz, standing apart near the threshold of the smokeroom, heard his name paged almost before the speaker had entered the door, and turned to take from the hand of the bearer a Marconigram just relayed from shore.  He read it and for an instant a look of pain crossed the features that rarely yielded to expression.  Then he sought out Karyl’s stateroom.

Karyl turned wearily from the wintry picture of a sullenly heaving sea, to answer the rap on the door.  His face did not brighten as he recognized Von Ritz.

The Colonel was that type of being upon whom men may depend or whom they must fear.  Whenever there was need, Karyl had come to know that there would be Von Ritz, but also there went with him an austerity and an impersonality that robbed him of the gratitude and love he might have claimed.

Now there was a note almost surly in the expression with which the Prince looked up to greet his father’s confidential representative.

“Well?” he demanded.

For answer the officer held out the message.

Karyl puckered his brows over the intricacies of the code and handed it back.

“Be good enough to construe it,” he commanded.

“The King,” said Von Ritz, “is ill.  His Majesty wishes to instruct you in certain matters before—­” He broke off with something like a catch in his voice, then continued calmly.  “Recovery is despaired of, though death may not be immediate.”

Karyl turned away, not wishing the soldier to see the tears he felt in his eyes, and Von Ritz discreetly withdrew as far as the door.  There he paused, and after a moment’s hesitation inquired: 

“Her Highness goes to Maritzburg—­to her father’s Court—­I presume?”

With his back still turned, the Prince nodded.  “Why?” he demanded.

“Because—­the message holds no hope—­” Von Ritz paused, then added quietly “—­and if Your Highness is called upon to mount the throne, it is advisable to hasten the marriage.”

He backed out, closing the door behind him.

In her own cabin the girl had bolted the door.  At the small desk of her suite-de-luxe she sat with her head on her crossed arms.  For a half-hour she remained motionless.

Finally she rose and, with uncertain hands, opened a suitcase, drawing from its place among filmy fabrics and feminine essentials a small, squat figure of time-corroded clay.  The little Inca huaca had perhaps looked with that same unseeing squint upon Princesses of other dynasties so long dead that their heartbreaks and ecstasies were now the same—­nothing.

She placed the image before her and rested her chin on one hand, gazing at its grotesque and ancient visage.

Her eyes slowly filled with tears.  Again she dropped her face on her arms and the tears overflowed.

* * * * *

Benton and Bristow had been sitting without speech as their motor threaded its way through the traffic along Fourteenth Street, and it was not until the chauffeur had turned north on Fifth Avenue that either spoke.  Then Benton roused himself out of seeming lethargy to inquire with suddenness:  “Do you remember the bull-fight we saw in Seville?”