news of my Queen?--what news of my Queen?"

Each mail as it came in made his heart beat, and often his hand trembled as
he lifted his pile of letters. But no sight of her writing gladdened his
eyes, until he began to be like the sea and its tides, rising twice a day
in a rushing hope with the posts, and sinking again in disappointment.

He grew to look haggard, and his father's heart ached for him in
silence. At length one morning, when he had almost trained himself not to
glance at his correspondence, which came as he was dawdling over an early
breakfast, his eye caught a foreign-looking letter lying on the top. It
was no hand he knew--but something told him it contained a message--from
his Queen.

He dominated himself; he would not even look at the postmark until he was
away up in his own room. No eye but Pike's must see his joy--or sorrow and
disappointment. And so the letter burnt in his pocket until his sanctum was
reached, and then with agonised impatience he opened the envelope.

Within was another of the familiar paper he knew, and ah! thank God,
addressed in pencil in his lady's own hand. Inside it contained an
enclosure, but the sheet was blank. With wildly beating heart and trembling
fingers Paul undid the smaller packet's folded ends. And there the morning
sunbeams fell on a tiny curl of hair, of that peculiar nondescript shade of
infant fairness which later would turn to gold. It was less than an inch
long, and of the fineness of down, while in tender care it had been tied
with a thread of blue silk.

Written on the paper underneath were the words: