Sketches New and Old

  CHAPTER IV

  THE AWFUL REVELATION.

  Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenanceof the good duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no morenow. The duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away Conrad'scolor came back to his cheeks and his old-time vivacity to his eye, andhe administered the government with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom.

  Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grewlouder; it spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold of it. Itswept the dukedom. And this is what the whisper said:

  "The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!"

  When the lord of Klugenstein heard it, he swung his plumed helmet thricearound his head and shouted:

  "Long live Duke Conrad!--for lo, his crown is sure from this dayforward! Detzin has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shallbe rewarded!"

  And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours nosoul in all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, tocelebrate the great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein'sexpense.