The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-12-19
GCdutInuodl CHAPTER XVII.
A Royal Tragedy.

A Royal Tragedy.
 @RHAT terrible tragedy in which
 the crown prince was sup
 posed to have taken his life @J came back to Matt in waves of recollection. He remembered the stir 1t had made, the shock of hor ror, the profound mystery in which the affair was shrouded. He remem- bered the speculations as to what had actually happened in that lonely hunt ing lodge, some maintaining that the beautiful young baroness had killed herself rather than be forsaken, caus- ing the prince to blow out his own brains from remorse; others, that it had been a double suicide, a death pact, deliberately conceived and as deliberately executed by the heir to one of the greatest kingdoms of the world.
 Matt was dumfounded; he could not utter word Was it possible, was it conceivable that John Mort was the
 ''You know the story that the world &Eows," continued the old man. "You know the story I myself believed for thirty-six hours. till"- He hesitated, lowered his voice and looked about him. Listen he went on. tsI mean 50 hide nothing from you. It is true that the young baroness threw caution to the winds and followed the prince there; it is true she shot herself; it is true that my son in his frenzy tried to turn the same pistol against his own breast
 t@To face such a scandal seemed i'm possible; to escape seemed worse. In either event the throne would be shaken to its foundations and my sens name blackened beyond redemp fion. He had valet named Zeitz- Ludwig Zeitz-one of those faithful gimpletons who are sublime in the devotion which our house has always inspired This fellow, who affected to copy the prince and was proud be- voRd measure of a resemblance no one saw but himself, threw himself at my sons feet. He would shoot him self, he said; his body would be mis- taken fer that of the prince; death atones for everything, and my son, unpursued, might pass the frontiers without detection and lose his identity in the countless millions beyond
 'tHis proposal was disregarded, was treated as a gross impertinence. He was roughly silenced and ordered to hold his tongue, while my son in the midst of his comrades persisted like a madman in his desire to die. Suddenly there was report, and they rushed in to find this Zeitz lying beside the wo- man with the top of his head blown of. He had dressed himself in my sons clothes, had taken my sons rifle and had resolved the matter in his own harebrained way. But at that moment in their dismayed state it seemed to my son and his friends the solution of everything. They did not --I- 4I,-- could pass the examination that would horse and fled
 'tAs I said, the imposture for thirty six hours was not questioned But the doctors could not be deceived. The body was unmistakably that of Lud- wig Zeitz. myself stood before it as it lay naked on their table and con 6rmed their opinion. My feelings to- ward my son were very bitter. He had dishonored the imperial house. exaggerated in my heart, though God knows it was great enough, the harm he had done it and me. With the con- nivance of the doctors I accepted the 1mposture. The world had accepted it, and decided to leave them in igno- rance.
 'It was not until years afterward- Tn 1898, when the empress was taken from me under the most horrible cir cumstances-that I found in her pa pers some facts of startling import. Her extravaganza, which had been the talk of Europe and to me a perpetual source of discord, had it's origin in a vast debt incurred In 1890, on which Rfterward she had been paying exces- give interest as well as steadily dimin- lshing the principal. And the one who had obtained that vast sum was no ather man than my unhappy son, who -sszo gone to her in his extremity and had thus acquired the means to hide himself in the uttermost parts of the earth.
 ''There is nothing the world will not condone nor forget, and in twenty years a new generation arises to whom the scandals of the old are of slight significance. My people love me; have no need to surround myself with guards and secret agents, as move among them, often with my little grandchil- dren on either side clinging to my hands; my reception is one to touch the heart. Surely, I said to myself. they @1u ha with me if I recall my son