Wondering and grave, the Queen passed on. Some blue butterflies flew by, circling in the still air. As she looked at them her heart was suddenly stirred to reverence and gratitude and joy for the beauty of their silken burnished wings. And as the thrill of tenderness shook her, it seemed, all at once, as if a glow were across her path, and as if, through the glow, she heard the child-laughter of the little Prince who had passed away. And so it happened, day after day, as the weeks sped by. Whenever the heart of the Queen was stirred to holiness by deeds and thoughts which were true and lovely and pure there came to her all the tender sweetness of memory and of communion, so that she knew that beyond the darkness her little son still sent his thoughts to her in love. But whenever she went to the belt of gloom to weep his voice was silent, and it seemed to her as if he had gone away for ever. And one day there came a strange beggar to the palace gates, with wild, wicked eyes and hatred of all men in his heart; and he had sworn to injure the King because the King was great and good. He kept his vow, and struck at the kind King as he was passing through the gates. But the Queen saw the raised dagger, and sprang in front of her husband, so that she received the blow herself. Then the Queen lay in strange silent illness, and the court met to judge the deed. The beggar crouched, terrified and trembling, before them; but, ere sentence could be given, a sweet woman's voice bade those who condemned him to pause, and the judges saw that the Queen had risen from her bed of sickness and stood among them. "Wait!" she cried, "wait! I, who have borne the pain, must speak the sentence." She paused, and, crossing to the beggar, laid her hand upon his head. "My sentence is--Forgiveness!" Her voice rang out like a sweet silver trumpet in the court-room, and everybody was very still. Then, all at once, the beggar burst into tears. But nobody else spoke or moved. Only the tears of the beggar flowed down until they made a tiny crystal pool, and the Queen, who bent over him, saw into the pool as into a mirror. And she beheld the margin of the country and the deep black fog which lay beyond; and as she looked, the fog broke away into long gleaming alleys of flowers with shining mists above them, as if of a rising sun, and, among the bloom, the face of the little Prince smiled fully upon her once again. Then, all at once, she heard the voice of the wise, quiet man, and she perceived that he stood again by her side. "What does it all mean?" she asked him breathlessly; "what does it all mean?" The beggar, whose face was pressed to the hem of her robe; the court, who still remained hushed and motionless; and the King, whose eyes reverenced her, all waited for the wise man's reply. It came to them softly, like the murmur of pine needles in a south wind. "There can be no Death where there is Love." [Illustration: decorative]