Since their marriage day the Prince had made it a bargain that whenever they dined _en famille_, his wife should prepare his coffee with her own hands.

She even roasted the berries and ground them herself, and, as many a time before, she did it to-night in the seclusion of the little room set apart for that and similar purposes.
She was alone in the physical sense, for the two watching Presences were invisible to her, and so, for all she knew, no one saw her measure twenty drops of a colourless fluid from a little blue bottle into the coronetted cup of almost transparent porcelain which had been one of her wedding presents to her husband.
After a couple of cups of coffee and half a dozen half-smoked cigarettes, the Prince stretched his long legs out, struggled with a yawn, and said in a sleepy voice: "My Princess, you must ask our guests to excuse me.

I am tired after the long day in the sun; and so, if I may, I will go to bed." He rose, and the rest rose at the same moment.

He bowed his good-night, and the two saluted.

The Princess followed him into the dining-room.
The unseen watchers stood by the end of the great heavily-hung bed, in the midst of which lay Prince Zastrow, seemingly sinking into the slumber of death.