Page 189

CHAPTER XVIII
THE MILL

TIME went on relentlessly marking off the days; and still no sign of any clue appeared to show who had done this beastly thing. Royston had appealed to the best brains at Scotland Yard to set to work and ferret out the whereabouts of Ivan and his confederates ; but they met with no success. They all worked secretly, because General Mason considered it would be wiser that Royston's discoveries should be kept quiet for the time being; he would thus be left a clear field for his investigations. Even the Queen had not been informed. Her burden was already bad enough to bear; and they dared not do anything to make it worse. It seemed as though all the light had gone out of her life. The members of her Court saw her
for the first time as she was-just a woman, a mother. There were times now when she seemed to care but little for the country of her adoption-the country she had sacrificed so much for, in the past-and had received so little from in return. At last it had even demanded her son! Yes! She blamed Bulkrania! She believed that had that sinister power which overshadowed her happiness not forced her to send Carl away into safety, so that one day he might serve his people as their king, she would never have lost him. She could not forget how she had sacrificed all those years when, if he had been with her, she could have showered a mother's love and care on him. She said very little about it to the members of her suite ; nor