almost tragic look.

No wonder, indeed, that there is a heavy and, alas! broken heart within the beautiful Marble Palace at Potsdam, that splendid residence where you once visited me and were afterwards commanded to a reception held by His Imperial Highness.

I risk much, I know, in taking up my pen to tell the truth and to make these exposures to you, but I do so because I think it only just that your British nation should know the true character of the Emperor and of the unscrupulous and ubiquitous "Willie," the defiant young Blackguard of Europe, who is the idol of the swaggering German Army, and upon whom they pin their hopes.

It is true that the Commander of the Death's Head Hussars—the "Commander" who has since the war sanctioned the cold-blooded murder of women and children, the shooting of prisoners, rapine, incendiarism, and every other devil's work that his horde of assassins could commit—once declared that "the day will come when Social Democrats will come to Court."

True, he has been known to be present at the golden wedding festivities of a poor cobbler in Potsdam; that he has picked up in his yellow ninety-horse-power car—with its black imp as a mascot—a poor tramp and taken him to the hospital; and that he possesses the charming manner of his much-worshipped grandfather, the Emperor Frederick. But he is as clever and cunning as his criminal father, Wilhehm-der-Plötzliche (William the Sudden) or Der Einzige (The Only), as the Kaiser is called by the people of the Palace. He shows with double cunning but one side of his character to the misguided German people, the Prussian Junker party, and the Tom-Dick-and-Harry of the Empire who have been made cannon-fodder and whose bones lie rotting in Flanders and on the Aisne.

Ah, my dear friend, what a strange life was that of the German Court before the war—a life of mummery, of gay uniforms, tinsel, gilded decorations, black hearts posing as virtuous, and loose people of both sexes evilly scandalizing their neighbours and pulling strings which caused their puppets to dance to the War-Lord's tune.

I once lifted the veil slightly to you when you stayed at the Palast Hotel in Potsdam and came to us at the Marble Palace, and I suppose it is for that reason that you ask me to jot down, for the benefit of your readers in Great Britain and her Dominions, a few facts concerning the plots of the Kaiser and his son—the idol of Germany, the Kronprinz "Willie."

What did you think of him when I presented you?

I know how, later on that same night, you remarked upon his height, his narrow chest, and his corset-waist, and how strangely his animal eyes set slant-wise in his thin, aquiline face, goggle eyes, which dilate so strangely when speaking with you, and which yet seem to penetrate your innermost thoughts.

I agreed with you when you declared that there was nothing outwardly of the typical Hohenzollern in the Imperial Rake. True, one seeks in vain for traces of martial virility. Though his face is so often wreathed in boyish smiles, yet his heart is as hard as that of the true Hohenzollern, while his pretended love of sport is only a clever ruse in order to retain the popularity which, by dint of artful pretence, he has undoubtedly secured. Indeed, it was because of the All-Highest One's jealousy of his reckless yet crafty son's growing popularity that we were one day all suddenly packed off to Danzig to be immured for two long years in that most dreary and provincial of all garrisons.

Of the peccadilloes of the elegant young blackguard of Europe—who became a fully-fledged colonel in the German Army at the age of thirty-one—I need say but little. His life has been crammed with disgraceful incidents, most of them hushed up at the Kaiser's command, though several of them—especially certain occurrences in the Engadine in the winter of 1912—reached the ears of the Crown-Princess, who, one memorable day, unable to stand her husband's callous treatment, threatened seriously to leave him.

Indeed, it was only by the Kaiser's autocratic order that "Cilli" remained at the Marmor Palace. She had actually made every preparation to leave, a fact which I, having learned it, was compelled to report to the Crown-Prince. We were at the Palace in the Zeughaus-Platz, in Berlin, at the time, and an hour after I had returned from Potsdam I chanced to enter the Crown-Prince's study. The door was a self-locking one, and I had a key. On turning my key I drew back, for His Majesty the Emperor, a fine figure in the picturesque cavalry uniform of the Königsjäger—who had just come from a review, and had no doubt heard of the threatened Royal scandal—was standing astride in the room.

"I compel it!" cried the Emperor, pale with rage, his eyes flashing as he spoke. "She shall remain! Go to her at once—make your peace with her in any way you can—and appear to-night with her at the theatre."

"But I fear it is impossible. I——"

"Have you not heard me?" interrupted the Emperor, disregarding his son's protests. And as I discreetly withdrew I heard the Kaiser add: "Cannot you, of our House of Hohenzollern, see that we cannot afford to allow Cilli to leave us? The present state of the public mind is not encouraging, much as I regret it. Remember Frederick August's position when that madcap Luisa of Tuscany ran away with the French tutor Giron. Now return to Marmor without delay and do as I bid."

"I know Cilli. She will not be appeased. Of that I am convinced," declared the young man.

"It is my will—the will of the Emperor," were the last words I heard, spoken in that hard, intense voice I knew so well. "Tell your wife so. And do not see that black-haired Englishwoman again. I had a full report from the Engadine a fortnight ago, and this contretemps is only what I have expected. It is disgraceful! When will you learn reason?"

Ten minutes later I was seated beside the Crown-Prince in the car on our way to Potsdam.

On the road, driving recklessly as I sat by his side, he laughed lightly as he turned to me, saying:

"What an infernal worry women really are—aren't they, Heltzendorff—more especially if one is an Imperial Prince! Even though one is a Hohenzollern one cannot escape trouble!"

How the conjugal relations were resumed I know not. All I know is that I attended their Imperial Highnesses to the Lessing Theatre, where, in the Royal box, the Kaiser—ever eager to stifle the shortcomings of the Hohenzollerns—sat with us, though according to his engagements he should have been on his way to Düsseldorf for a great review on the morrow. But such public display allayed all rumour of his son's domestic infelicity, and both Emperor and Kronprinz smiled benignly upon the people.

Early next day the Crown-Prince summoned me, in confidence, and an hour later I left on a secret mission to a certain lady whom I may call Miss Lilian Greyford—as it is not fair in certain cases in these exposures to mention actual names—daughter of an English county gentleman, who was staying at the "Kulm" at St. Moritz.

Twenty-four hours afterwards I managed to see the winter-sports young lady alone in the hotel, and gave her a verbal message, together with a little package from His Imperial Highness, which, when she opened it, I found contained a souvenir in the shape of an artistic emerald pendant. With it were some scribbled lines. The girl—she was not much more than twenty—read them eagerly, and burst into a torrent of tears.

Ah! my dear Le Queux, as you yourself know from your own observations, there are as many broken hearts beating beneath the corsets of ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honour, as there are among that frantic feminine crowd striving to enter the