There was neither beginning or ending; just a couple of sentences scrawled across the thick notepaper: "It is my will that you offer your hand in marriage to the Princess Stephanie of Eiderstrom.

Your union shall be blessed by the Church and approved by my Court.
"WILHELM." Dominey sat as a man enthralled with silence.

She watched him.
"Not on your knees yet ?" she asked, with faint but somewhat resentful irony.

"Can it be, Leopold, that you have lost your love for me?
You have changed so much and in so many ways.

Has the love gone ?" Even to himself his voice sounded harsh and unnatural, his words instinct with the graceless cruelty of a clown.
"This is not practical," he declared.