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CHAPTER IV
THE AWFUL REVELATION.
Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenance
of the good duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no more
now. The duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away Conrad's
color came back to his cheeks and his old-time vivacity to his eye, and
he administered the government with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom.
Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grew
louder; it spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold of it. It
swept the dukedom. And this is what the whisper said:
"
The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!"
When the lord of Klugenstein heard it, he swung his plumed helmet thrice
around his head and shouted:
"
Long live Duke Conrad!--for lo, his crown is sure from this day
forward! Detzin has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shall
be rewarded!"
And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours no
soul in all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, to
celebrate the great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein's
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