sense of honour and chivalry, he promised to marry her, and thereupon
wrote an impulsive letter to his father informing him of his intention.
Of course he was summoned home from college at once,--he was reminded
of his high destiny--of the Throne that would be his if he lived to
occupy it,--of the great and serious responsibilities awaiting him,--
and of how impossible it was that the Heir-Apparent to the Crown should
marry a commoner.

"Why not?" he cried passionately--"If she be good and true she is as
fit to be a queen as any woman royally born! She is a queen already in
her own right!"

But while he was being argued with and controlled by all the
authorities concerned in king's business, his little sweetheart herself
put an end to the matter. Her parents told her all unpreparedly, and
with no doubt unnecessary harshness, the real position of the college
lad with whom she had wandered in the fields so confidingly; and in the
bewilderment of her poor little broken heart and puzzled brain, she
gave herself to the river by whose flowering banks she had sworn her
maiden vows,--though she knew it not,--to her future King; and so,
drowning her life and love together, made a piteous exit from all
difficulty. Before she went forth to die, she wrote a farewell to her
Royal lover, posting the letter herself on her way to the river, and,
by the merest chance he received it without a spy's intervention. It
was but one line, scrawled in a round youthful hand, and blotted with
many tears.

"Sir--my love!--forgive me!"

It would be unwise to say what that little scrap of ill-formed writing