Saying no more, he
moved toward the door.
She gazed after him, and suddenly and silently she stretched out her
arms, her eyes and face and lips yearning with love. Curiously enough,
the duke happened to turn. He was at her side in a moment, holding her
firm in his embrace.
"You are all I have, girl!" with a bit of break in his voice.
"My father!" She stroked his cheek.
When he left the room it was with lighter step.
The restoration of the Princess Hildegarde of Ehrenstein had been the
sensation of Europe, as had been in the earlier days her remarkable
abduction. For sixteen years the search had gone on fruitlessly. The
cleverest adventuresses on the continent tried devious tricks to palm
themselves off as the lost princess. From France they had come, from
Prussia, Italy, Austria, Russia and England. But the duke and the
chancellor held the secret, unknown to any one else--a locket. In a
garret in Dresden the agents of Herbeck found her, a singer in the
chorus of the opera. The newspapers and illustrated weeklies raged about
her for a while, elaborated the story of her struggles, the mysterious
remittances which had, from time to time, saved her from direst poverty,
her ambition, her education which, by dint of hard work, she had
acquired.
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