King; and though, whatever might happen to him, his place would be
automatically filled, and government go on just as before, yet, as a
national symbol, his life was too valuable to be risked; and so on
ascending the throne he had been forced, as his father before him, to
resign his personal liberty and cease to go out in the happy,
unpremeditated fashion of earlier days.

He had long since got over the curious home-sickness which this
separation had at first caused him, and as an opening to personal
enjoyment the impulse for freedom had long since died within him; but
his heart still vaguely hungered for the people who called him their
King; and looking out into the pale sunshine that was now thinly
buttering the surface of his prosperous capital, and listening to the
perpetual tick and hum of its busy life, he knew that for him it was and
must remain, except in an official sense, an unknown territory. And yet
out there, in that territory which he was unable to explore, the thing
that is called "the popular will" lived and moved and had its being!
Dimly he dreamed of what it might be--a thing of substance and form; but
there was none to interpret to him his dream--except upon official
lines.

Before his eyes, a salient object in the heavens surpassing the stony
eminences which surrounded it, rose the tall spire of the twin Houses of
Parliament. Upon its top swung a gilded weathercock; while about a
portion of its base stood a maze of scaffolding, the façade of the
building having during the last few months been under repair. There
seemed, however, for the moment, to be no workmen upon it. Presently, as
he gazed vacantly and without intent, something that moved upon the
upper masonry engaged his attention. Slowly along its profile, out of
all those hidden millions below, one of his subjects, a single and