"In this country," he said, "you place so high a value upon the
gift of life. Nothing moves you so greatly as the killing of one
man by another, or the death of a person whom you know."

"There is no tragedy in the world so great!" Penelope declared.

The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

"My dear Miss Morse," he said, "it is so that you think about
life and death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian
country--you have a very beautiful faith. With us, perhaps, there
is a little more philosophy and something a little less definite
in the trend of our religion. Yet we do not dress Death in black
clothes or fly from his outstretched hand. We fear him no more
that we do the night. It is a thing that comes--a thing that must
be."

He spoke so softly, and yet with so much conviction, that it
seemed hard to answer him. Penelope, however, was conscious of an
almost feverish desire either to contradict him or to prolong the
conversation by some means or other.

"Your point of view," she said, "is well enough, Prince, for
those who fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a
great cause. Don't you think, though, that the horror of death is
a more real thing in a case like this, where a man is killed in
cold blood for the sake of robbery, or perhaps revenge?"

"One cannot tell," the Prince answered thoughtfully. "The
battlefields of life are there for every one to cross. This