place it seemed to the princess that we could most readily find retreat for a time and yet within reach of the lawyers in i saw both louis and lord before we departed to the one i said good bye practically for ever to the other i could only say that for the present i felt that it was best that everything should stand in but the princess tells me that you will take your own name again he said yes i will do that i replied it is my name and of course i have no right to the one under which you met me the other evening and anxiously you are not going away leaving me quite without hope you will come back to me some day i don t know i replied i can say nothing definite the strange story of my life ly i must have time to let things arrange themselves a little not even for you i do anything which will pain either of those two so we parted and the princess and i set off on another stage of life s journey together at we settled for an indefinite time the princess having secured a beautiful villa just on the outskirts of the town we passed on the whole a very dull and dreary existence for we saw no visitors and our only interests lay in the news which came to us through the newspapers and the post wrote to me every day giving me the fullest details of his life his hopes his thoughts his doubts and fears louis never wrote to me at all but he very often did to his mother and several times lawyers came to and fro with papers that it was necessary i should sign then louis wrote and told his mother that he had made up his mind as he could not bear the desolation of to go to north america on a big shooting expedition nothing is so likely he wrote to take me out of myself as complete change of scene and of occupation i know that my dear love is with you and if you can spare me i shall make my preparations for leaving immediately it is needless to say that the princess not only consented but she willingly in this decision and so time went on until nearly a year had gone by since the last and greatest of my life had happened after this our life together was even more dreary than it had been before from time to time though at very irregular intervals princess had news of louis and at last he wrote to her making a definite suggestion on my behalf which was to me the strongest possible confirmation of the noble and unselfish love which he bore me i wish that you would say to he wrote that every day i live i feel how hard it is upon that he should be kept away from her after all there is no and the end reason that the man who has the best claim to her the first right and a love for her equal to my own should be kept at arm s length out of a feeling of delicacy towards me will you show this letter to i think that she will understand me when i say that i do not make this suggestion from lack of love but rather the contrary i have been waiting for this said the princess when i had come to the end of her son s letter knew that louis would see things sooner or later in their true and right relation it is not just to lord that you should be kept apart any longer you love each other you have always loved each other my son is perfectly right in all that he says if you will allow me i will send for lord and give you to him myself in louis s name oh no i cried why should i put you to such pain nay dear child she said you forget that i am louis s mother it will be one of the moments of my whole life so we came together again and i by the wish and at the hands of my adopted mother princess he came to to fetch me and from there we made a long tour passing through many lands making few acquaintances living wholly and solely for each other i wrote to my dear princess constantly and learned from her that louis was back at and that he was bearing his life more bravely than even she had anticipated then when there seemed to be some prospect of an heir to the old west country name we turned our steps towards england and in due course of time a little son was born to us whom we named after that brave and unselfish soul who had loved me so dearly and yet so unfortunately the strange story of my life i will not say that my life was without shadow i was happy � oh yes and yet there were days in the year sacred in which i felt that my husband had no part there were times when he all the wealth of his love upon me when i felt that although his love might equal it it could never that other which stood alone outside the of my life so the tranquil years rolled on and with every one my adopted mother found her way to and with us for a little while every time that she came i hoped that she might bring the news that louis had found happiness elsewhere but he never did so he passed to and fro in different parts of the world sometimes going to the wildest and most spots in search of big game sometimes spending a season at but he made no effort to his life in a 