And they say that in her low red-pillared palace Suskind smiled contentedly and made ready for the future.

Oh, very certainly you have paid little as yet save the one lock of your gray hair, but in time you will pay the other price which Suskind demands.

I know, for it is I who collect my sister Suskind's revenues, and when the proper hour arrives, believe me, Count Manuel, I shall not be asking your leave, nor is there any price which you, I think, will not be paying willingly.

For Suskind is wise and strange, and the grave beauty of her youth is the fulfilment of an old hope.

" "So, do you very greatly love my sister Suskind?" says Hinzelmann, smiling rather sadly.

As a drunkard goes back to the destroying cask, so do you continue to return to your fine home at Storisende and to the incessant whispering of your father's father, for all that you have but to remain in Suskind's low red-pillared palace to be forever rid of that whisper and of this dreary satiating of human desires.

No, my good Hinzelmann, you that serve Suskind have shown me strange dear things, but nothing more strange and dear than a thing which I discovered for myself.

" "Oho, you are not yet so old, Count Manuel, but that Suskind's power is greater than the power of the child: and besides, there is a way to break the power of the child.

That is all as yet: and so the power of my high sister Suskind endures over you, who were once used to follow after your own thinking and your own desire, for there remains in you a leaven even to-day.

He knew also that Suskind would never remit this price.

" [Illustration] XXXVIII Farewell to Suskind

"And so farewell to you, Queen Suskind," says Count Manuel.

" "Weep, weep for Suskind!"

" "Weep, weep for Suskind!"

" "Oh, it is very true," says Manuel, "that all my life henceforward will be a wearying business because of long desires for Suskind's love and Suskind's lips and the grave beauty of her youth, and for all the high-hearted dissatisfactions of youth.

" "Oh, it is very true," says Manuel, "that all my life henceforward will be a wearying business because of long desires for Suskind's love and Suskind's lips and the grave beauty of her youth, and for all the high-hearted dissatisfactions of youth.

"We weep for Suskind.

Suskind is slain with the one weapon that might slay her: and all we weep for Suskind, who was the fairest and the wisest and the most unreasonable of queens.

Suskind is slain with the one weapon that might slay her: and all we weep for Suskind, who was the fairest and the wisest and the most unreasonable of queens.

Let all the Hidden Children weep for Suskind, whose heart and life was April, and who plotted courageously against the orderings of unimaginative gods, and who has been butchered to preserve the hair of a quite ordinary child.

" "We weep, and with long weeping raise the dirge for Suskind!"

" "Let all the Hidden Children, and all else that lives except the tall gray son of Oriander, whose blood is harsh sea-water, weep for Suskind!

Suskind is dead, that was unstained by human sin and unredeemed by Christ's dear blood, and youth has perished from the world.

"Yes, certainly," Dom Manuel said, "I might have known that my life was bound up with the life of Suskind, since my desire of her is the one desire which I have put aside unsatisfied.

" The other replied: "Why should you think that I know anything about this Suskind or that we of the Léshy keep any account of your doings?