— The Ninth Installment —

What will be the fate of our love, now that David has become King?!

The Prince says in his memoirs:

On the afternoon of Thursday, January 16, I was out with my companions on a hunting expedition when an urgent message reached

me from my mother, saying that my father was ill; she could not gauge the extent of the danger, but Lord Dawson was not easy about the outcome... and so she was calling me to come to the palace, without drawing my father's attention to it...

It so happened that I was at the Fort when he came in, this message in his hand; he passed it to me without uttering a word, then disappeared, and afterward I heard him ask that his airplane be made ready the next morning... I returned home after bidding him goodbye, and he telephoned me that evening to say that his father was on the mend and his condition gave no cause for alarm whatever... But the next day he called again to say that the King was on his deathbed and might die within a day or two, and that he himself had to go to the Prime Minister to inform him of the matter... On Monday evening I was watching a film when suddenly the lights on the screen went out, and this announcement appeared in bold letters: "The King's life now rests in the grasp of his Maker." The news struck deep into my soul...

When I reached home after midnight, I heard the telephone ringing in my room, and when I took up the receiver, David's voice came from the other end, saying: It is all over. I said nothing but "I am sorry"; as for him, he went on talking in agitation — everything was in ferment and unrest... but he told me he was going to London in the morning and would call me from there... Only when I put the receiver back in its place did I realize that the Prince had become King...

And David did indeed come to London, to attend the first ceremony of his accession to the throne; afterward he telephoned me, and his voice came weary as I had never known it before, and I wished I could help him; but that was not possible, least of all at that particular moment. And it happened, while I was watching one of the celebrations of the

new King's crowning... that I was thunderstruck to find David at my side! To explain the secret of his conduct to his attendants he said: I like to watch the ceremony for myself... And when the last carriage passed out of sight, I felt tears sliding down from my eyes; I could scarcely believe that all this was for him... and he, beside me, was deeply moved... While we were going down the stairs together, I thanked him for inviting me and for his special attention to me, particularly now that he had entered a world entirely different from mine; but he pressed my arm, repeating: Yes, it is another world, but it will not have the power to change my feeling for you... Then he vanished like a mirage...

The days went by, and I would hear from David a hurried word or a rushed note, while the palace was in mourning; and I thought that our going out together to restaurants, and the "weekend" holidays, were over... he could no longer behave like an ordinary man... he was the King!...

I felt a deadly loneliness, but I hid my feeling, for there was nothing else I could do... In this period the subject of the Prince's marriage was raised — he had now become King, and the people followed his news and awaited the happy event with the utmost impa-tience. He had told me of his parents' eagerness to raise the subject: his mother would remind him once every year of the matter of his marriage, and though she never spoke of it in plain terms, she would hint from time to time that it had become necessary for her son to settle down with a suitable woman of his

The legal divorce from Simpson was no easy affair...