daughter’s hand.

Together they strolled slowly on, chatting as lovers will. At the bottom of Fopstone Road they continued round the crescent of Philbeach Gardens, along Warwick Road, and crossing Old Brompton Road, entered that maze of quiet, eminently respectable streets in the neighbourhood of Redcliffe Square, strolling slowly on in the falling gloom.

“Do you know, darling,” he exclaimed at last, “I wanted to see you very particularly this evening, because I am leaving London to-night for Servia.”

“For Servia!” she cried, halting and fixing her great eyes upon his in quick surprise.

“Yes.”

Her countenance fell.

“Then you—you are leaving me?”

“It is imperative, my darling,” he said, in a low, tender voice, taking her hand in his. He wished to kiss her sweet lips, but there in the open street such action was impossible. Courtship in our grimy, matter-of-fact London has many drawbacks, even though every house contains its life-romance and every street holds its man or woman with a broken heart.

“But you never told me,” she complained. “You’ve left it until the last minute. Do you start from Charing Cross to-night?”

“Yes. I would leave to-morrow at nine, and catch the Orient express from Calais for Belgrade, but I have business to do in Paris to-morrow.”

“Ah! Belgrade!” sighed the girl. “I wonder if I shall ever see it again? Long ago I used to be so fond of it, and we had so very many good friends. Dear old dad is so popular. Why, when we drove out the people in their brown homespun clothes used to run after the carriage and cheer ‘Petrovitch the Patriot,’ as they call dad.”

“Of course you will return soon,” Charlie said. “No doubt your father will be induced to enter the new Pashitch Cabinet.”

The girl shook her head dubiously.

“I know the King has several times asked him to return to Servia, but for some mysterious reason he has always declined.”

“But he is the most popular man in the country, and he cannot remain away much longer. It is his duty to return and assist in the Government.”

“Yes. But my mother died in Belgrade, you know, and I think that may be the reason he 

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