"A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe" (continued 5)

“Do not let us discuss that now,” he hastened to reply in a low, hard voice, for he never knew until that moment how mad was his affection for her.

And just then one of the royal flunkeys entered, bowing, to announce that the car was awaiting Her Royal Highness.

Their hands clasped in silence, and she walked out through a line of obsequious servants and down the flight of steps to the royal car.

As she went out a waiter stood behind the line of soldiers drawn up in the great vestibule, watching intently. Unobserved he had followed the pair when they had emerged from His Excellency’s private cabinet, and his shrewd eyes had noticed something amiss.

He was the same man who had passed Hubert earlier in the evening and whose face had so puzzled him.

The Englishman, after the royal car had driven away, turned and made his way back in search of Ghelardi.

The discovery held him utterly confounded. What secret was contained in that envelope she had stolen? Why had she a key to the Minister’s safe?

As he walked back, his mind tortured by a thousand strange thoughts and curious theories, the mysterious waiter followed him at a respectable distance, watching.

Hubert was wondering what had become of Pucci whom he ordered to be near him, and whom he had not seen the whole evening.

He gained the door of His Excellency’s room just as the Chief of Secret Police returned along the corridor.

“I have been endeavouring to discover His Excellency, but, unfortunately, I cannot find him anywhere,” the old man said. “We will open the safe and see what has been taken. It is utterly astounding to me that the Princess Luisa should be revealed as a spy.”

“I do not think we should condemn her yet,” urged Waldron. “There may be some explanation.”

“Explanation! What explanation can there be of a woman who takes advantage of a reception, when the sentries are relaxed, to creep up here, open the safe with a false key, and abstract documents.”

“I cannot see the motive,” declared Waldron.

“Ah! but I do. I and my agents have been watching for weeks,” he replied, and crossing to the safe he placed the key in the lock and again opened it.

Many formidable bundles of documents were disclosed, lying within, together with the thin envelope with which Lola had replaced the one she had taken.

Waldon took it up and turned it over with curiosity. Then, deliberately tearing it open, he pulled out its contents.

It was, he found to his dismay, only a blank piece of tracing paper!

“Ah! that is what she has placed here, after taking out a similar envelope, I suppose,” snapped the keen-eyed old man, grasping the situation in a moment. “I have suspected this all along—ever since those fortress plans so mysteriously disappeared. And now she has taken another document. I was foolish to allow her to leave with you.”

“The document—or whatever it is—is in my safe keeping.”

“You have it!” he cried quickly. “Please hand it to me.”

“I shall do no such thing, Commendatore,” was Hubert’s defiant reply.

“It is a secret of State, and you, as a foreigner, have no right to its possession!”

“It has been given to me for safety, and I shall hand it over to His Majesty, and to him alone.”

“Signor Waldron, I demand it,” the old man said angrily, raising his voice as he flung the safe door to with a clang and re-locked it. “I demand it—in the name of His Majesty!”

“And I refuse.”

“You defy me then?”

“Yes, I defy you, signore,” he replied firmly, his dark eyes fixed upon those of the crafty official.

“You are Her Highness’s lover. When the King is made aware of that fact he will show you little graciousness, I assure you,” said Ghelardi with a dry laugh.

“But you will remain silent upon that point, just as you will remain silent regarding what we have discovered to-night,” the Englishman said slowly. “No scandal must attach to the Princess’s name, remember.”

“Of course you wish to shield her—for your own ends. She is the spy for whom we have been searching all these weeks. It is she who placed in the hands of the our enemies the truth concerning the new fortifications along the northern frontier.”

“I refuse to discuss that point,” replied Hubert very coldly, but firmly. “One thing alone I demand of you, and that is silence—silence most absolute and profound.”

“It is my duty to inform the King of the whole circumstances.”

“True, it may be your duty, but it is one that you will not perform, Signor Ghelardi. Think of the terrible scandal throughout Europe if the Press got wind of it! And they must do—if you report officially, and it comes to the ears of His Excellency the Minister. The latter hates the Princess, because she accidentally snubbed the Countess Cioni at the ball at the Palazzo Ginori last week.”

“That is no affair of mine. Women’s jealousies do not concern me in the least. I am charged with the safety of the State against foreign espionage.”

“Well—in this case you’ve discovered the truth accidentally,” responded the diplomat, “and having done so, if you respect your Sovereign and his family, you will say nothing. Further, we may, if we remain silent, be able to obtain more information from Her Highness as to the identity of the person into whose hands the plans fell.”

“She abstracted them, without a doubt, for she had this duplicate key of the safe,” the old man declared.

“You will say nothing, I command you.”

“You! How can you impose silence upon me, pray?” he demanded fiercely. “You are a foreigner, and you are holding a State secret.”

“I shall hold it at present for safe keeping.”

“Then I shall go straight to the King and lay the whole matter before him.”

“You threatened to do a similar action before,” said the other very quietly. “I repeat my warning—that silence is best.”

“Then I tell you frankly that I refuse to heed your warning. It is my duty to my Sovereign to tell him the truth.”

“Very well—go to him and tell him—at your own peril.”

“Peril!” he echoed. “What peril?”

“The peril at which I have already hinted, Signor Ghelardi,” he answered in a low, hard voice. “Do you wish me to be more explicit? Well—there is in a village called Wroxham, in Norfolk, a mystery—the murder of a man named Arthur Benyon, a British naval officer—which has never yet been cleared up. One man can clear it up—an eyewitness who is, fortunately, still alive and who knows you. And if it is cleared up, then you, Luigi Ghelardi—who at the time occupied the office of Chief of the German Secret Service, and was directing the operation of the horde of spies who are still infesting East Anglia, will be confronted with certain very awkward questions.”

The old man’s face went livid. He started at Waldron’s words, and his bony fingers clenched themselves into the palms.

“Shall I say more?” asked the Englishman, after a brief pause, his eyes fixed upon the crafty chief of spies. “Shall I explain how Arthur Benyon, an agent of the British Intelligence Department, was attacked one summer night after sailing on the Norfolk Broads, being shot in cold blood, and his body flung into the river—how the revolver was thrown in after him, and how, half an hour later, a man, dusty and breathless, gained a car that had been waiting for him and drove through the night up to London. And the fugitive was yourself—Luigi Ghelardi!”

He paused.

“And shall I describe the hue and cry raised by the police: how at the inquest a man named James, employed on a wherry, made a queer statement that was not believed, and how you left London next day and returned to Germany? Shall I also describe to you what the eyewitness saw—and—”

“No!” cried the man hoarsely. “Enough! enough!”

“Then give me that safe key and remain silent. If not, I shall also do my duty and explain to the King those circumstances to which I have just referred.”

Ghelardi reluctantly drew the key from his pocket, and having handed it to the Englishman, passed to the door in silence, staring in horror at the man who had so unexpectedly levelled such a terrible accusation against him.

He knew that Hubert Waldron held all the honours in that game. In his eyes showed a wild, murderous look.

Yes, he would treat the man before him as he had treated the Englishman, Benyon—seal his lips as he had sealed his own—if only he dared!

But Hubert Waldron, his hand upon the hilt of his uniform-sword, only bowed as the other slowly passed out. He knew now the reason why those two men, Merlo and Fiola, had been bribed to encompass his end.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Reveals the Bondage.

On his return home Hubert sat at his table, and very carefully broke open the stolen envelope.

To his surprise, he found that it merely contained several pieces of tracing linen upon which were many lines, angles, and numbers, all of which were quite unintelligible.

There were four small sheets, each about twelve inches square and as far as he could make out, they related to certain plans—or else they were plans in themselves. The scale seemed very small; therefore, after a long examination, he came to the conclusion that they must form the key to other plans, and had been reduced purposely, so that they could not be used without considerable preparation.

If they formed a key, this, no doubt, would be done in order that no improper use might be made of them.

The four pieces of tracing linen were practically covered with cabalistic signs and numbers, short lines, long lines, and all sorts of carefully ruled angles at various degrees. Yet there was nothing whatever upon them to show what they were.

There, during the night, beneath his shaded reading-lamp he strove to puzzle out their import.

Upon one he discovered that the various calculations appeared to be heights in metres and centimetres, and certainly in another were measurements concerning reinforced concrete.

Suddenly a startling thought flashed across his mind. The plans of the new fortresses on the Austrian frontier had been stolen, but as far as he could gather no use had been made of them. True, the army of Austria-Hungary had been mobilised and was held in secret, hourly ready for attack. Yet no formal representations had been made from the Vienna Foreign Office to Rome, and all inquiries had failed to establish that the reason of the secret mobilisation was actually due to the alleged act of war on the part of Italy.

Was it possible, therefore, that the plans stolen were worthless and conveyed nothing without that neatly executed key which lay spread on the blotting-pad before him? Would Her Highness, when she met him next day, reveal to him the truth?

For the present he had imposed silence upon his enemy, the crafty old Ghelardi. But how long would that last—how long before Italy, and indeed the whole of Europe, rang with the terrible scandal of a Royal House!

That night he locked away the envelope with its precious contents safely in his steel dispatch-box and still in his clothes, cast himself upon the bed to sleep. But it was already nearly five in the morning, and he failed even to close his eyes.

The discovery of Lola’s treachery had utterly bewildered and unnerved him. Surely she could not want money—and the temptation of money alone makes the traitor. He loved her still. Yes, after that first revulsion of feeling at the moment when he had caught her in the very act it had become more than ever impressed upon him that by her sweetness and beauty she held him in her toils—that he loved her with a mad, profound passion, a deep and tender love, such as he had never before experienced, not even in the case of that brilliant-eyed Andalusian who had been so near dragging him down to his ruin.

Ay, he loved her, even though the bitter truth how stood revealed in all its naked hideousness. Yet, alas! he could not tell her of his love. No. He dare not! Between them there existed a wide barrier of birth that was of necessity unsurmountable. She, a princess of the blood-royal, could never be permitted to marry a mere diplomat, any more than she could marry the man to whom she had given her heart, Henri Pujalet.

Thoughts of the latter brought reflections that he was in Rome. That fact was very curious, to say the least.

Had not the Frenchman urged him to keep his presence a secret from Lola? Why? He had, he said, arranged to meet her.

Feelings of the most intense jealousy and hatred arose within Hubert’s heart, for did he not remember that passionate love-scene he had witnessed beneath the palms in far-off Wady Haifa.

At nine o’clock the telephone bell rang, and he replied to it.

It was Renata, Lola’s maid, who explained that Her Highness would be unable to go out to Frascati, but would call upon him at noon—an appointment which he eagerly confirmed.

Just before eleven Waldron called upon General Cataldi and was shown at once into the Minister’s private room.

Without much preliminary he said in Italian:

“I am anxious to know whether another document of very great importance has disappeared from Your Excellency’s safe?”

The General looked at him keenly, in wonder at his meaning.

“I confess I scarcely follow you,” he replied.

“Well, I have suspicion that, during the reception last night another valuable confidential document was abstracted—an envelope containing several sheets of tracing linen.”

His Excellency, quickly taking the safe key attached to his watch-chain, rose eagerly and opened the big steel door.

“Yes,” he gasped, turning pale, “it’s gone! What do you know about it, signore?”

“No,” laughed the Englishman; “this is not quite so serious, for though it was actually stolen last night I already have it safe in my possession.”

“You!”

“Yes. I recovered it. But first please tell me to what the tracing refers.”

“Why, to the plans of our new fortresses along the Austrian frontier,” was his prompt reply. “I doubt if they would be understood without that key. Pironti declares they would be valueless.”

“Then the same person who stole the key would have stolen the original plans—eh?”

“Without a doubt. Who was the thief? You know, signore! I can tell it from your face.”

“True, I do know, but at present Your Excellency must excuse me if I remain silent. I hope in His Majesty’s interest—indeed in the interest of the Italian nation to be able to avoid a scandal.”

“But surely you can tell me in confidence. Signor Waldron,” the General protested. “The plans disappeared and I know from my own personal observations that His Majesty held me in suspicion, as responsible for their safe keeping.”

“No suspicion can further attach to you, General Cataldi,” the Englishman assured him, “nor to your secretary. But I have called to ascertain exactly the nature of the key plans.”

“I am much relieved if suspicion has been lifted from my shoulders, signore,” was the General’s reply. “I know that both you and our friend, the Commendatore Ghelardi suspected that someone in the Ministry had connived at this act of espionage.”

“The theft has been committed by a person outside the Ministry.”

“Who—do tell me who, signore,” he cried eagerly.

“Not at present. I can say nothing. I am only here to obtain further information, so that I may make a complete report to His Majesty and explain of what assistance Your Excellency has been to me.”

The General—the man who had accepted bribes from every quarter—hesitated for a few seconds. This man whom he had hitherto regarded as his enemy was, he thought, evidently his friend, after all!

“The tracings of the key were purposely upon a smaller scale, so that they would have to be enlarged by photography, or re-drawn, to be of any use,” he said. “Three days ago they were examined by the Committee of National Defence in view of the theft of the plans themselves; my secretary placed them in the safe prior to being returned to the Department of Fortifications.”

“Then I take it that the missing plans are quite useless to any outsider without the measurements and calculations upon the key?”

“That is so.”

“You have never stated this before,” remarked Waldron in surprise.

“No question has been put to me.”

“But the plans were stolen and the consequences extremely grave.”

“And Ghelardi has been in search of the thief. He is no friend of mine,” said the General with an expressive smile.

“Hence you have not mentioned the key—eh?” His Excellency smiled again in the affirmative. “Then, if the key is safe, the plans are, after all, useless?”

“Exactly, Signor Waldron. Indeed I question whether a foreign Power could make out what new construction were intended—and certainly they could not—without the tracings you refer to—discover the strength of the armaments of the forts.”

“Then that is all I require to know at present,” Hubert said, and a few moments later, as Pironti entered, he took his leave.

At noon he was standing in his room when the crooked-backed Peters ushered in Her Royal Highness. She was dressed smartly, but neatly, in deep black, with a large hat which suited her admirably, though her face was white as paper.

“I was unable to go out to Frascati,” she explained, as she put out her gloved hand to him. “So I thought it better to risk being seen and to call on you, Mr Waldron.”

The door was closed and they stood alone.

His eyes were fixed upon her, and for some seconds he did not reply.

“Lola,” he said at last, “I—I really hardly know what to say. The whole affair of last night is too terrible for words.”

“I know, Mr Waldron. Ah! I—I feel that I cannot face you, for what excuse can I make? I have no excuse—none whatever.”

“But why in Heaven’s name have you betrayed your country—why have you placed yourself so utterly and entirely in the hands of your enemies?” he cried in blank dismay.

“Because—ah! because I have been compelled.”

“Compelled to hand Italy’s secrets over to the hands of her enemies?” he asked in bitter reproach.

“Yes. But, at the time, I was in ignorance of what I was doing—of the fateful consequences—until, alas! too late.”

“And then?”

“Then, when I realised what! Had done—when I knew that I had made such a terrible mistake, and, further, that you were in search of the thief, I became horrified. Ah! you do not know what I have suffered—how horrible, how awful it has all been; in what constant dread I have lived all these long months, forced as I was to betray my country which I love.”

“Forced—what do you mean?” he asked with a very grave look.

“I was forced, because I was utterly helpless,” she gasped, her gloved hand upon the back of a chair to steady herself. “Last night I failed, because—because of you, Mr Waldron, and that failure means to me but one thing—death—death by my own hand!”

He stared at her, starting at her strange words. “Why, what do you mean, Lola?” he asked quickly. “Are you really in your right senses that you should say this?”

“I tell you quite openly and frankly, that I have come this morning to see you, because of my promise of last night—but it is to see you for the last time. Now, when I leave you I shall go back, and before to-day is out, I shall have bidden farewell to you—and to all!”

“No, no. You are not yourself to-day,” he said. “You—a Royal Princess—contemplating suicide! It’s absurd! Think of the terrible scandal—of your family, of the Royal House.”

“The scandal would be greater, if I dared to live and face exposure.”

“But why face exposure?”

“There is no other way. Last night, just as I was within an ace of releasing myself from the terrible bondage, you entered and discovered the disgraceful truth. Ghelardi, too, knows it. He will tell His Majesty—for he hates both you and I, as you well know.”

“Your Highness may rest absolutely assured that he will say no word to the King—he dare not.”

“Dare not? Why? Ghelardi will dare anything.”

“He will not dare to utter a syllable regarding the events of last night,” said Waldron. “Therefore this affair remains between you and me.”

And he looked her straight in the face, much pained at that tragic interview.

“Be frank with me, Lola—do!” he urged after a moment’s pause. “Tell me the real truth, and I may yet be able to save the situation.”

“No,” she cried, wringing her hands frantically. “You cannot. I have come to bid you good-bye—you, my good friend. Ah! I have been too foolish; I have disregarded all good counsels, and have gone down—down to my death! Yet only; because I have loved. Had I not had the misfortune to have been born a princess I should have loved and been happy. But, alas! happiness is impossible for me, unfortunate as I am—only death—death!”

And she stood, her white nervous lips moving in silence, her fine eyes fixed straight before her as though looking into the Unknown, horrified, transfixed.

Chapter Thirty.

Mijoux Flobecq.

“Lola,” he cried at last, unable to stand the sight of her tears and despair, and equally unable to restrain—himself longer. “Lola! Let me help you—let me know the real facts, however ugly they may be—and I will get you out of this difficulty! I implore you to do this, because—ah! you force me to confess to you, though I have believed myself strong enough to preserve my secret—because I love you!”

She started quickly and drew back, staring at him in surprise through her tear-dimmed eyes.

“You!” she gasped.

“Yes,” he answered in a quick, low whisper, grasping her small hand in his. “I know that I have no right to speak to you thus, but I cannot hold my secret longer. My love for you is forbidden, and besides I know, alas! too well, that your affection is centred upon another—Henri Pujalet—the man who loves you.”

Mention of her lover’s name seemed to electrify her. She snatched away her hand, turned her head and ejaculated:

“No, no. Do not mention that man’s name, I beg of you?”

This caused Hubert considerable surprise. Was it actually possible that they had quarrelled? He recollected that Pujalet had told him that he had come to Rome to meet her.

“I regret, Lola, if I have annoyed you,” he said quickly in deep apology, “but the fact remains that I love only you—you, my love!”

“You have forgotten your Spanish dancer—eh?” she asked in a strange tone of reproach.

“I took your advice,” was his simple reply; “and in doing so I gradually grew to love you, Princess, yet knowing that my affection could only bring me, a lonely man, grief, pain and despair.”

She was silent. Her little, white-gloved hand was again in his, and he had raised it reverently to his lips.

Ah! that was to him a moment of extreme ecstasy, for her hand lay inert and he saw that though her head was turned to conceal her emotion, her chest heaved and fell convulsively. She was sobbing.

He placed his arm tenderly about her small waist, and slowly she turned her tear-stained face to his. Their gaze met, but no second glance was needed to show that the passionate affection was reciprocated, though it remained unspoken, unacknowledged.

For some moments he held her in his strong, manly embrace, and though no word passed between them their two hearts beat in unison.

Alas! it was but a false paradise. Yet are not our lives made up of such? And we, all of us, are prepared to sacrifice years of weariness and of grief for five brief minutes of sweet illusion.

He did not speak. He knew not what to say. The serious nature of that theft on the previous night he realised, alas! too well. Had that intricate key plan passed from her hand, then the whole truth would have been out, and Europe must have been suddenly aflame.

As it was, his duty remained towards her, to strive to stifle the scandal and prevent the story either reaching the King’s ears or becoming public property.

Cataldi knew that the key had been stolen, and would probably inform His Majesty, in which case Hubert would be hastily summoned to audience and closely questioned.

In such circumstances what could he explain? Ay, what?

For fully five minutes the pair stood there motionless, save that with his hand he had softly stroked her cheek. Then, unable to repress the passion that arose within his bursting heart, he bent until his lips touched hers in a fierce, passionate caress.

She turned her great, expressive eyes upon his, those eyes that were so deep and fathomless, and sighed heavily as he kissed her. Her beautiful head was thrown back, displaying her slim white throat, around which was a thin platinum chain from which was suspended a tiny platinum locket encrusted with diamonds, a gift of the Tzarina. She was inexpressibly sweet and refined, her soft beauty seeming the more perfect as she stood there inert in the man’s strong arms.

Again his lips met hers. Then to his boundless joy he felt that, at the same instant she kissed him in return.

Yet next second, as though annoyed that she should have flung discretion to the winds, she gently disengaged herself from his embrace, saying in a low, pained voice:

“No, Hubert—I—I mean Mr Waldron—this is madness. I—we can never be anything but friends, alas! though I—”

She broke off short, and hot tears again filled her splendid eyes.

Then, covering her face suddenly with her hands, she burst into a fit of sobbing.

Hubert crossed and turned the key in the door in case Peters might enter.

Then, returning to her, he strove to comfort her. He implored her, with all the pleading he could summon, to reveal to him the whole story of the plans and the reason she had abstracted them.

But she gravely shook her head, and still preserved a resolute silence.

The man stood bewildered. He saw himself in a terrible quandary. Within a few hours the King might get to know, or Cataldi might inadvertently mention the mysterious theft of the key plan.

The Press—and more especially the scurrilous section of it on the Continent—has an ingenious way of ferreting out details regarding scandals which is gravely disconcerting to those who are trying to suppress them.

Of his love Hubert Waldron made no further mention. Her mild reproof held him tongue-tied. He knew, alas! too well, the bitter truth of her simple remark. They could never be more than friends, for she must marry a Prince of the blood-royal. The pride of the Royal House of Savoy would never admit or sanction a morganatic marriage.

For fully another quarter of an hour she remained there. He saw, however, upon her face traces of tears, and when she grew calmer he opened the door of his room, into which she passed, and there bathed her eyes with eau-de-Cologne.

When she again emerged she was her old self, though still very pale and nervous, and just before one o’clock she drew on her long gloves and, taking up her blue, morocco hand-bag which bore the royal cipher in gold, bade him a low, half-whispered “Addio.”

“Not farewell,” he said, bending and kissing her hand. “Keep a stout heart, Lola. Do nothing rash. Act with great caution and discretion, and I, on my part, will do all I can to preserve silence.” She shook her head despairingly.

“That does not remove the terrible stigma upon me,” she said. “It does not remove my guilt!” And with those words upon her white lips she passed through the door which Hubert unlocked for her and down the stairs to the busy street; he following in silence.

In order not to attract notice she would not allow him to call a vettura, but preferred to walk. Therefore, slipping out of the door with another whispered adieu, she was instantly lost to his sight.

When he returned upstairs the telephone bell was ringing, and he responded.

He heard the detective, Pucci, speaking.

“You missed me, signore—eh?” he said cheerily, though the voice sounded far away. “I am at Orvieto—at the Hôtel Belle Arti—eighty miles from Rome. I could not communicate with you before leaving. Can you come here? It is most important. I cannot leave.”

“Neither can I,” Waldron replied. “Why have you gone to the country?”

“I am keeping observation upon a friend of yours, signore.”

“A friend of mine! Who?”

“The gentleman whom you spoke with at the station in Rome last night—a foreigner.”

Waldron started. Could he mean Henn Pujalet?

“A Frenchman?”

“Si, signore. His behaviour was curious, therefore I came here with him. I have made a discovery. Will you come here? If you leave by the two-eighteen from Rome—the Milan express—you can be here soon after five. I would return to Rome but I have no one here whom I can trust to follow if he leaves,” Pucci explained.

Waldron felt that in the circumstances to leave Rome was impossible—and yet on further reflection he saw that if the King summoned him to audience would it not be best to be absent from the capital and thus gain time for action? The brigadier, Pucci, was not a man ever to follow false scents. He must have discovered something gravely mysterious. Was it possible that he had found out that the elegant Frenchman was the lover of Princess Luisa!

He had only a few seconds to make up his mind. “Very well, Pucci. If you think it necessary I will leave by the train you mention. Meet me at the station.”

“Benissimo, signore,” answered the voice faintly dying away, as it does upon some trunk-telephone lines.

Waldron tried to question him further, when the querulous voice of the female clerk at the Exchange declared that the time was up, and promptly cut him off without further ceremony. Telephone operators are no respecters of persons, whether one Is in Paris, Pekin, Petersburg, or Paddington.

Swallowing a sandwich at the station buffet, and travelling without luggage, Hubert Waldron entered a first-class compartment of the express, which that afternoon was well-filled by foreigners leaving Rome for the north—the reason being that the Roman season, now over, Society was making for Paris and London, as fast as it could. There is always a headlong rush at the end of the season, be it in Egypt, on the Riviera, from Algeria or from any French or German watering-place. It is always helter-skelter to the capitals, regardless of comfort or of expense, and the Compagnie des Wagons-lits reaps a rich harvest always.

The journey from Rome up the wooded valley of the winding Tiber, through a country rich in ruins of the ancient Etruscans, lay through the real heart of Italy, delightfully picturesque, yet for Hubert in his state of mind it held no attraction. He sat in the compartment together with two elderly Englishwomen of the quiet, pension type, and a young and rather foppish German student, impatient to meet the detective, and hear from him the result of his observations.

Orte, high up amid its most delightful surroundings, was passed at last, and then, after several stoppages—though the train was termed an express—Orvieto, situate upon the top of its steep rock was reached, a Gibraltar on land, an invulnerable fortress in the days of the Etruscan League, and in mediaeval times a great stronghold of the Guelphs, and often affording refuge to the Popes.

The station lay below the town, which latter was reached by a funicular railway through a long, dark tunnel beneath the fortress. And upon the platform, as the train ran in, Hubert discerned a rather insignificant-looking man in shabby black and somewhat down at heel—a man at whom no one would cast a second glance. It was the brigadier, Pucci.

Hubert descended and crossed towards him, but to his surprise the detective turned away and did not appear to recognise him.

Indeed Pucci hurried off quickly as though business had called him elsewhere, and ere the diplomat could approach he was already out of the station.

In a secluded corner, away from the view of other arriving passengers, the detective halted, saying with relief:

“Madonna mia, signore! That was a narrow escape of being detected.”

“Why?” inquired Hubert in surprise.

“Why, did you not see who arrived by the train with you?”

“No,” replied the Englishman. “I was not watching.”

“Her Royal Highness the Princess Luisa alighted from your train.”

“Her Highness?” he gasped utterly dumbfounded.

“Yes; but I hope she has not seen you,” Pucci remarked dubiously.

“Then Pujalet is here—still at the hotel,” said Hubert, for he at once realised the object of Lola’s visit there.

“Si, signore. Presently I will tell you what I have by the merest chance discovered,” Pucci replied. “But we must be extremely wary—or the Princess may see us. She is evidently on her way to the hotel to meet your friend the Frenchman. We will let her go, and follow quickly afterwards. Last night a complot was afoot—some desperate plot—But my suspicions were aroused, and by some action of yours—I know not what—it was frustrated.”

“But what do you know, Pucci?” Hubert Waldron demanded breathlessly. “Tell me quickly.”

“I will tell you presently—after we have ascertained the motive of this journey of Her Highness,” replied the detective quietly. “Ah! I am glad you have come here, Signor Waldron. There is something in progress which is an entire mystery to me—something which I believe that you alone will be able to explain.”

“But you have said there was a plot which was frustrated last night. Of what was its nature?” The detective did not reply. His head was turned towards the roadway, which his quick eyes were watching intently.

“Her Highness has gone up to the hotel,” he said. “Let us hasten and watch. I will explain all later. Come—we have not time to lose. This fellow, Flobecq, is a very slippery customer.”

“Flobecq!” echoed Hubert Waldron, starting in amazement.

“Yes. His name is Flobecq, yet I suppose that is not the name by which you know him—eh?”

“Flobecq!” gasped Hubert Waldron. “You are dreaming. Surely that is not his name.”

“Yes, signore, I tell you it is. His name is Mijoux Flobecq!”

Chapter Thirty One.

The Bond Revealed.

“The whole affair last night was a complete fiasco, thanks to you!”

“I know it, alas!”

“And all through your infernal friendship with Waldron?”

“I cannot help it. I did my very best, Henri.”

“Your best!” sneered the Frenchman. “You actually allowed him to take the tracings from you when you already had them in your possession! Faugh! It is all too childish.”

“Childish!” Lola echoed in anger. “Ah, yes, I know. What affection have you now for me—you who declared that you were mine—that—”

“Love is out of the question,” the man replied brutally. “With me it is a matter of business. We must all live. You—a Royal Princess—are in no want. I, agent of the Foreign Office at Vienna, am in constant want of money. You gave me plans that were useless. I merely asked you to contrive to obtain for me the missing tracings.”

“In return for my letters to you!” she cried, in bitter reproach.

But the man merely laughed as he replied:

“Have I not told you, my dear Lola, it is with me purely a matter of finance, not of sentiment.” They were together in a small, plainly furnished sitting-room on the first floor of the mediaeval Palazzo Bisenzi, now occupied by the Hôtel Belle Arti, in ignorance that every word spoken could be overheard by the Englishman and his companion.

The two latter were listening intently at the door of an adjoining room—for in Italian hotels the communicating doors are always an invitation to the eavesdropper. The old place had frescoed walls and ceilings, and in some rooms the floors were of marble.

“And because I have failed, you will carry out your disgraceful threat—eh? You told me so on the telephone this morning,” she asked in a low, nervous voice.

“You have failed purposely—because you did not intend that I should gain knowledge of that military secret. I know how strenuously active that English friend of yours has been in endeavouring to elucidate the mystery of the theft—and now, thanks to you, he has succeeded,” replied Mijoux Flobecq, alias Henri Pujalet, the well-known spy of Austria—the man to whom, though young, the authorities in Vienna had practically entrusted the direction of her wide network of spies across the face of Europe. So cleverly had he concealed his identity that even Ghelardi—the great Ghelardi, whose boast it was that he knew every secret agent of importance in Europe—had been utterly unaware that Henri Pujalet and Mijoux Flobecq were one and the same!

Hubert had long ago heard him spoken of as a man whose phenomenal successes in espionage had been most remarkable for their cleverness, ingenuity, and daring. The foreign policy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had practically been based upon his reports—as that of Italy was based upon those of Luigi Ghelardi—and in every chancellerie in Europe the name of Flobecq was synonymous of all that was crafty, cunning, and unscrupulous.

The official head of Austria’s Secret Service was a stout and rather slow-speaking, plethoric man of middle-age, who had graduated under Azeff in Russia, and who was well-known to Ghelardi. But Mijoux Flobecq was a man of meteoric fame, a man who had recently come to be regarded in almost legendary light as one of the most remarkable of the unseen and unknown characters in European espionage.

There are several others, Bylandt of Berlin, Captain Hetherington of London, Gomez of Petersburg, and the mysterious and elusive Monsieur X. of the Quai D’Orsay. Diplomats know them by name, and are too well aware of their successes. But not one of them has ever been identified in the flesh.

Lola uttered a loud protest against the allegation that she had purposely played into the Englishman’s hands, and then turned and reproached him bitterly for his heartless and brutal treatment.

“I have failed through no want of tact,” she cried. “Was it not clearly to my own advantage to preserve my honour—now, alas! that you stand revealed in your true light—that I should act as you directed and become a thief?”

“You used the safe key I gave you with great success on the first occasion—”

“Because I was in ignorance of the terrible gravity of my action,” she interrupted. “You told me that the plans were of no real consequence, but if you could obtain them it would put you in the good graces of your firm in Paris. You told me that your firm were Government contractors who were seeking to learn certain details in order that they might tender to our Ministry for the construction of the forts. I never dreamed the truth. I had no idea that you were Mijoux Flobecq, the spy of Austria! Not until three days after I had handed you the plans were my suspicions aroused by some remark which His Majesty dropped while speaking with General Cataldi after one of the State banquets. Then, making a few inquiries in secret, aided by my friend, Pietro Olivieri, I was horrified to discover the ghastly truth,” she said. “I found that you—the man who had declared your profound love for me—had practised a most wicked deception. You had induced me to hand over one of the most important of our State secrets to our enemies in Vienna!”

“It was useless without the key,” he remarked, quite unaffected by the bitterness of her reproach.

“I committed a theft for which others were suspected, because of my love for you,” she went on in a low, hard tone. “You, as Henri Pujalet, had very cleverly led me to believe you had no idea that I was any other than Lola Duprez, niece of old Jules Gigleux of Paris. Yet you knew my real identity all the time! You had laid your plans cleverly, and made me believe that you spoke the truth when you swore undying devotion to me. For nearly nine months you made pretence to love me, and wrote me many letters, to which I naturally responded. Our stolen interviews took place in many cities, but you had always one fixed idea—the coup which you would one day make with my assistance. At last, on that occasion when at midnight I met you on the road to Tivoli, you put before me a proposition. To save you from bankruptcy, and in order that your position might be assured with your firm in Paris, you begged me to obtain the plans of those frontier fortresses—to steal them! You had, it seemed, intimate inside knowledge of all the arrangements at our Ministry of War. You actually described the very portfolio in which they were kept, and knew the very hour at which they would be placed in the Minister’s safe, to which you even gave me a duplicate key.”

The man only laughed aloud at her chagrin.

“I now know how you had met General Cataldi at Biarritz, and had, by a clever ruse, taken a wax impression of his safe key, and how, indeed, for months you had been contemplating the theft, feeling certain that my love for you would be strong enough to induce me to fall your helpless victim. Well, I fell. Yes, I believed in you, Henri—believed that you really loved me. I sacrificed all for your sake. But it never crossed my mind that your love was only a hollow pretence, that you were fooling me with your soft-spoken speeches, and that you were the enemy of my country or a professional spy.”

“You could have had me arrested,” he laughed. “Why didn’t you?”

“Ah, when I realised what I had done I begged you to return the plans I had stolen. Mr Waldron conveyed my imploring message to you in Brussels and what was your reply? That I must remain silent—that the key plan was wanted—and that if I did not consent to help you to obtain it you would hand over my letters to you for publication in the Matin!”

“That is exactly what I intend now to do,” was his cold reply. “Our bargain was that I would return your letters on condition that you obtained the tracings of the key.”

“I failed to do that,” she cried frantically. “I was detected.”

“By Waldron. Because you intended that you should be caught in the act, and thus prevented from carrying out your part of the contract.”

“But surely you will give me back my letters!” she implored eagerly. “You will not hound me—a helpless girl—to death by my own hand! I could not bear the exposure, for the honour of my House.”

“You should have thought of all that before,” he laughed mockingly. “The bargain was fair enough, and you accepted readily.”

“Because I could not bear exposure. Think what the publication of those letters will mean to me. In them I have admitted committing a theft. I—a Royal Princess—have betrayed my own country?”

“You are not the first woman who has sacrificed her life for her love,” he answered, quite regardless of her emotion.

“But have you no pity for me, no remorse?” she cried in frantic despair.

“I repeat that, to me, this is not a matter of sentiment. All I required was the cipher key plan—which you actually had in your possession and gave up to Waldron. I was in the Ministry that night in the garb of a waiter. I watched him follow you into the Minister’s private cabinet, and I saw Ghelardi go in later. He came out, and presently you came out with Waldron. I followed you both down to the vestibule, but from your faces I knew that you had been discovered.”

“Yes, Mijoux Flobecq,” she cried in sudden defiance, “the game is up, and the honour of Italy is saved. The timely entry of Mr Waldron into that room has averted a European war!”

“And brought exposure and disaster upon yourself,” answered the man in harsh tones. “Within a week from to-day Europe will read in the Paris Press a most interesting correspondence which will reflect anything but honour upon the Royal House of Savoy.”

“Then you really intend to crush me, and send me to my death—eh?”

“I intend to act exactly as I have said,” was the fellow’s firm response. “When my mind is made up I never alter it.”

“So this is how you repay me for all my sacrifice for you—eh?” she asked with poignant bitterness, and a catch in her voice which was distinctly audible by the two men listening.

“The brute,” whispered Waldron loudly to his companion. “He shall answer to me for this!”

“But I appeal to you,” she implored; “I—”

“It is useless. I gave you an excellent opportunity of recovering your letters, but you have not taken it. The bargain, I repeat, was a fair and straightforward one. You wanted your letters—I wanted the key plan. But—” and he hesitated as though a sudden suggestion had crossed his mind. “Just wait a few moments. I have forgotten something in my room. I will not be a minute or two—and then we can resume this highly interesting conversation.”

And the two men listening breathlessly heard the door open and shut, and then the silence was broken only by Lola’s low, despairing sobs within.

Chapter Thirty Two.

Through the Night.

A quarter of an hour passed, but the spy of Austria did not return.

Both Waldron and the detective stood in wonder near the door conversing in low whispers.

Nearly half an hour went by, and they could only hear Her Highness pacing the room in her mad despair. Yet Flobecq had not returned.

“Is it possible that he could have overheard my threat of vengeance!” exclaimed the Englishman to his companion. “Has he suspected that the conversation has been heard and left the hotel?”

“Madonna mia! He may have done, signore,” Pucci replied. “He is a most alert person.”

“Go out and make inquiry. I will remain here. He knows me.”

“He knows me also,” laughed the Italian. “I kept observation upon him once in Livorno, where he was conducting some negotiations regarding the purchase of plans of two of our battleships being built in Orlando’s yard. That is why I have recognised him. He scented danger on that occasion and fled.”

“Just as he has now done, I fear,” said Hubert. “Go quickly and make inquiries.”

Ten minutes later the brigadier re-entered and said excitedly:

“He’s gone! He had a motor-car awaiting him round in the Via del Duomo. It was a strange car, a long, grey, open one, they say. It had been waiting an hour. The chauffeur was a Frenchman. They left by the Porta Maggiore, and have evidently taken the direction of Bolsena. He took his hand-bag with him, and left a fifty-lire note for his hotel bill.”

“Then he must have overheard me!” gasped Waldron dismayed. “By Jove! he’s got away, and with the Princess’s letters in his possession. What bad luck!”

By this time, of course, Pucci was aware of the whole circumstances.

Hubert Waldron was a man of action. Without a second’s hesitation he rapped at the door of the next room, and confronting Lola, who almost fainted at his sudden and unexpected appearance, explained how he had followed her, and listened to the tragic story as revealed by her conversation with the notorious Mijoux Flobecq.

“Then you know, Mr Waldron! You know all!” she gasped, her face pale as death.

“Everything,” he answered hastily. They were alone together, for Pucci had gone out to hire a car. “But I have no time to lose. The spy has escaped us, and we must follow instantly if we are to be successful in preventing this exposure. Return at once to Rome, and behave just as though nothing whatever had happened. Trust in me, Lola,” he said, and looking straight into her eyes he took her small hand gently in his, and raised it in reverence to his lips.

“Yes,” she whispered in a low, intense voice. “You are my only friend, Mr Waldron. I will put my entire trust in you.”

“Then addio—for the present,” he said hastily. “I have not a second to spare. I will do all I can to save you from exposure and scandal, Lola. So remain calm, and leave all to me.”

“I do—I do,” she answered frantically. “Ah! what should I do at this moment without your kind aid?”

“No, no,” he protested, again bowing and kissing her hand in his courtly manner.

He dared not kiss her upon the lips, though he was sorely tempted.

“Au revoir,” he said. “Return to Rome as soon as ever you can, I beg of you. Fear nothing from either Ghelardi or this spy who has vanished.”

And he hurried out, down the wide stone stairs of the great prison-like old palace, a fortress in the days of the Cinquecento, but now turned into an albergo.

Pucci stood below. A car would be round in ten minutes—the best and most powerful he could obtain. But of hire cars in the remote town of Orvieto not much could be expected, therefore when half an hour later they found themselves speeding in the twilight through the hills and dales of the white, dusty road towards the Lake of Bolsena they were not surprised to find that the engine had a nasty knock, and its firing distinctly bad.

The chauffeur, a dark, beetle-browed young man of the debonair giovanotto type, had, however, entered fully into the spirit of the chase, and was travelling with all speed, following the tracks of Flobecq’s car, which could be distinctly discerned in the thick white dust.

In the little town of Bolsena, beside the lake, they ascertained that a grey car had come swiftly through, and had turned to the right at the water’s edge, taking the road which at the end of the lake branched in two directions, one leading westwards to the sea at Orbetello, forty-five miles or so as the crow flics, or about ninety by road, while the other led direct north, the highway to Siena and Firenze.

It had now grown too dark to see the tracks in the dust, therefore taking their head-lamps they made careful examination of the road, but, alas! upon both they saw motor tracks which seemed in that uncertain light to be exactly similar.

Truly Mijoux Flobecq was an elusive person.

In that, one of the wildest and most unfrequented parts of Italy, where even to-day the motorist is lucky if he is not stoned, and where the peasantry are uncouth and hardly civilised, a night journey was not at all inviting.

After a brief consultation they both agreed that the most probable intention of the fugitive—if his suspicions had been aroused, as was most likely—would be to go north, join the railway on the main line to Florence, and probably get out of the country immediately, carrying with him the Princess’s letters.

The coup had failed, and Lola knowing him to be a spy, might reveal the truth. Flobecq was wary enough to foresee such an awkward eventuality. Hence his headlong flight, which had, no doubt, been cunningly arranged, as were all his rapid journeys.

Hubert was just about to mount into the car and continue northward along the straight, well-made road which ran first to Acquapendente and then to Radicofani—a village of bad repute on the top of a conical hill, where every car was stoned as it passed, the King’s included—when his quick ears caught a sound.

A motor cyclist was coming rapidly along the road leading westward.

As he approached Pucci hailed him, and he pulled up.

“Have you met a big, open, grey car half an hour or so ago?” the detective inquired of the young man, who seemed surprised at being thus stopped.

“Yes. It passed me just as I came out of Pitigliano village. At least I suppose it must have been the car you mention. The lights were out, and it was travelling very swiftly.”

“Going towards Orbetello—eh?”

“Yes. That is the only place it can reach. The road runs quite straight down the valley, and there are no branches until you get to the sea at Albegna.”

“He’s gone to Orbetello, no doubt,” Hubert exclaimed. “He will catch the express for Turin from there. We must make all haste possible.”

Then, thanking the motor cyclist for his information, the car was backed and turned, and soon they were tearing through the gathering darkness down a long, winding valley which echoed to the roar of their engine and the constant hoot of their horn.

Steep and dangerous was the road in many places, with a loose surface and a number of sharp turns. The drive was a wild one, but if Flobecq was to be intercepted before he caught the night express for the frontier they would have to drive madly.

The beetle-browed chauffeur of Orvieto drove as he had never driven before, though Italians are noteworthy as dare-devil drivers. They passed through Pitigliano—where the cyclist had met the fugitive—and on again into the wild, dark mountains to Manciano, a remote place in the midst of high, barren precipices. Then, after a steep descent, they at last, after nearly two and a half hours, met a drover who confirmed the cyclist, and said that a motor without lights had gone past long ago, after nearly running him down.

The chase was, indeed, exciting.

The Englishman and his companion sat in the car full of eager anxiety. Once Flobecq gained the train at its stopping-place, Orbetello—that quaint old town on the Mediterranean shore—then he would escape, as without a warrant he could not be detained.

So they urged on the chauffeur, who now drove with all the nerve and daring he possessed. The night became thick and black with those dark, low clouds which in spring in Italy are so frequent, and herald a thunderstorm.

The storm came at last, just about eleven. The lightning flashed and the thunder rolled, echoing and reverberating along the valley where the road ran beside the rushing torrent on its way to the sea.

Then, after four hours of the most exciting drive that either man had experienced, they came to the junction of the Albegna River, and then out upon a broad road across a plain, straight toward the open sea.

After a further eighteen miles or so, a red light showed suddenly—the light of a level railway crossing. They had at last gained the main line which runs by the Maremme from Rome to Pisa—the main line to Genoa and Turin.

Passing the crossing, the gates closed behind them with a clang almost immediately, and then, the road ran parallel with the railway for many miles towards ancient Orbetello with its ponderous walls and the sea.

Hubert bent, and striking a match with difficulty, looked at his watch. It wanted eighteen minutes to midnight.

He and his companion had on the way calculated that if they lost no time they could reach Orbetello, which was one of the stopping-places of the night express from Rome for Paris, just before the train was due to arrive.

Twice after leaving the mountains they had news of the car they were chasing, once from a shepherd and again from two mounted carabinieri. If they could reach Orbetello they might prevent Flobecq from leaving.

“We must not yet demand his arrest,” the Englishman said to the man at his side. “If we did then it would result in just the thing we are endeavouring to avoid—exposure!”

“No, signore. We must catch him up and keep in touch with him until you decide what action to take in Her Highness’s interests.”

The chauffeur, urged on by Hubert, drove with reckless speed, with the railway line always on their left, and now and then passing red and green, signals, and the small, lonely houses of the watchmen of the line.

Already in the far distance could be seen the lights of the little town out at the end of a promontory at the foot of the high, dark Monte Argentario, rising straight from the sea, a corner of Italy which no one ever visits, though it is on the direct sea road to Rome.

“At last!” cried Waldron excitedly, pointing out the lights.

“Yes, signore, that is Orbetello!” declared Pucci. “But see,” he added quickly. “See that single light on the left yonder! Is it not moving—coming towards us?”

Hubert strained his eyes in the direction which the detective pointed.

“By gad! yes. Why—why it’s a train. And it is coming towards us!” he gasped.

At that moment they passed a signal which fell, showing the line to be clear.

Both men sat silent, watching the rather dim but fast-approaching light.

Yes, assuredly it was a train which had stopped at Orbetello and was now on its way towards the north!

On it came swiftly, with a red glare showing from the furnace, until suddenly, with a bursting roar, it thundered past.

Hubert saw the two long sleeping-cars with their blinds closely drawn.

“It’s the express!” he cried, dismayed. “The Paris express! The spy has caught it—and escaped!”

Pucci said nothing. He sat silent, turning to watch the red tail-lamps as the express bore on its way and out of sight.

And until the car reached the railway station at Orbetello, theft dark and deserted, with lights turned down, no further word was uttered by either man.

Of a sleepy porter Hubert, as he dashed out of the car, made quick inquiry.

“Si, signore,” replied the man. “An open car drove up a few moments before the express came in, and a signore got out and bought a ticket for Turin, and left by the train. The car went away at once, away in the direction of Montalto and Rome.”

Hubert described the man Flobecq, and according to the porter the description fitted exactly.

After that the two men returned to the car and held consultation.

“The train is due in Turin about eleven to-morrow morning. We cannot reach there before three in the afternoon.”

“If the individual is making for France he will proceed at eleven-thirty, and be across the frontier before we can reach Turin,” Pucci remarked thoughtfully.

“Exactly. Our only plan is to have him met at Turin and followed, and a report sent to us at Turin as soon as he arrives at his destination. He may go on to Milan, and thence to Trieste and Vienna—who knows? We must therefore telephone to the Questore in Turin to send down a sharp detective to pick him up and travel with him. You, Pucci, must use your authority as brigadier of detective police and make the request to the Questore.”

At once the detective called the porter and sent him for the stationmaster who, as soon as he ascertained the detective’s position, opened the office and upon the telephone called up the central police bureau at Turin.

For fully half an hour there was no reply.

At last a voice responded, whereupon the detective at the instrument explained that he was Brigadier Pucci of the brigade mobile of Rome, that he was following a dangerous person named Flobecq, alias Pujalet, who was in the Paris express due at Turin at eleven next morning.

Then he made an urgent request that he should be met, and followed abroad if he attempted to leave Italy. Again there was a silence for ten minutes, while the request was placed before the detective superintendent on duty.

At last came the request for the description of the fugitive, and this Pucci gave slowly, with professional exactness, so that it could be taken down.

“He is a very clever and elusive person, and no doubt suspects he may be followed,” Pucci added. “Therefore the greatest caution is necessary not to let him discover that observation is being kept. I am at Orbetello, and am coming on to Turin by the next train to report personally to the Questore.”

The voice in return assured the detective that the fugitive would be met and watched by one of the shrewdest officers available.

“Benissimo! I shall arrive about three. Please tell the Questore that the matter is a strictly confidential one—a private inquiry instituted by the direction of His Majesty the King.”

“Your message shall be sent to the Questore to his home at once,” the voice replied, and their communication was interrupted.

Would they be successful in cutting off the spy’s retreat?

Suspecting that he would be followed, he might leave the train at Pisa and go on to Florence, and thence to Milan. Or again, at Genoa he might decide to continue along to Ventimiglia and thus across the frontier into France at that point.

Hubert pointed out these loopholes of escape, whereupon Pucci returned to the telephone and was presently speaking to the Commissary of Police at the station of Ventimiglia, giving him a description of the fugitive, and asking that he might be followed. And afterwards he spoke to the police officer at Pisa station, warning him in similar manner.

Thus all that they could do from that dark, lonely, obscure little town they did, yet Hubert’s thoughts were chiefly with Lola. He was wondering if she had yet returned to Rome.

The startling truth which he had learnt while listening to the conversation in Orvieto that evening had staggered him.

The spy, Flobecq, still held the trump card—those foolish declarations of affection and admissions of her guilt.

Truly the situation was most serious, for the honour of the Royal House of Savoy was at stake!

Chapter Thirty Three.

Spreading the Net.

At half-past three next day Hubert Waldron entered the private room of the Questore, or Chief of Police at Turin, where they found a rather elegant, brown-bearded man seated at his writing-table. He instantly recognised Pucci, and quick explanations ensued.

“The man you want duly arrived here,” said the official, “and was picked up by Cimino—whom I believe you know.”

“Certainly. He was with me in Genoa some years ago,” said Pucci.

“Well, all I know is, that the man Flobecq left by the Paris express just before noon, and Cimino is with him. I had a telephone message from you to the effect that His Majesty was making an inquiry. What is it about?” he asked, gazing from the detective to the Englishman.

“At present it is confidential,” replied Pucci, rather lamely. And then he introduced Waldron as a foreign diplomat, and explained that the matter concerned diplomacy, and that the King desired the affair to be kept entirely secret.

The curiosity of the bearded official was at once curbed. Cigarettes were lit by all three, and the Questore suggested that Pucci and his companion should go to the Hôtel Europe and await word from Cimino.

“I will give orders that at any hour when a wire may arrive a copy shall be sent over to you,” he promised.

“Excellent,” exclaimed Hubert, thanking the Chief of Police, and ten minutes later the pair left the Prefecture and drove to the hotel to await developments.

Hubert telegraphed to Lola, giving her brief word of what he had done, and signing himself “Your Friend.” He feared lest somebody might open the dispatch, because for aught he knew she might have left Rome to attend the Queen upon some public function or other, as she was so often forced to do. She scarcely knew from one day to another where she might be, for King Umberto’s Queen was a capricious lady, and somewhat erratic in attending the public ceremonies which were so frequent, and entailed such long and tedious journeys from end to end of the kingdom, one day in Bari, the next in Pisa, and the next in Como. Often Their Majesties, in the fulfilment of their public duties, travelled the whole twenty-four hours in order to arrive at a memorial, to lay a foundation-stone, launch a battleship, or inspect a corps of veterans—and those twenty-four hours of train journey in summer were often the reverse of pleasant. Truly the King worked as hard as any daily toiler within his kingdom.

The Europe, overlooking the big, wide piazza in Turin, proved a quiet place, and Hubert was glad of a stretch on the bed—in his clothes—after the wild motor journey of the previous night.

About twenty-four hours later came the eagerly awaited message from the Italian detective, reporting that Flobecq had installed himself in a small obscure establishment called the Hôtel Weber in the Rue d’Amsterdam, close to the Lazare Station in Paris, and that he was apparently in treaty with a person named Bernard Stein, a journalist of evil reputation.

“He is negotiating the sale of the Princess’s letters!” Hubert gasped when he read the copy of the detective’s telegram.

Therefore, within an hour, accompanied by Pucci, he was in the express, climbing that steep railroad which leads up to Bardonnechia, and the long tunnel of the Mont Cenis.

The train was not an international one, therefore they were compelled to change at Modane, the frontier, where they took the P.L.M. rapide for Paris.

After another night journey across France, the two men alighted from a taxi at the Hôtel Weber, a small, uninviting-looking place with a dingy café beneath. It was then eight o’clock in the morning, and the valet de chambre, a clean-shaven man in shirt-sleeves and green baize apron, showed them two barely furnished rooms with the beeswaxed floors uncarpeted. They held consultation, being joined at once by the detective, Cimino, a short, stout man with small black eyes, and rather shabby clothes.

A few words sufficed to explain the situation.

He had followed Flobecq, unobserved, and had ascertained that on the previous day he had met in the Café de la Paix, a man named Stein, whom he afterwards found was an unattached journalist who wrote for certain of the most unprincipled of the Paris journals.

The two men spent several hours together, and were apparently bargaining. No agreement, he believed, had been arrived at, and they had arranged to meet again that day.

Hubert listened in silence to the man’s story, then, taking a taxi, he drove first to the British Embassy, and thence to an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe, where he was closeted for half an hour with Colonel Guy Maitland, the British military attaché.

Thence, just after half-past ten, he drove to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d’Orsay, and there interviewed one of the permanent staff.

When he emerged he was accompanied back to the Hôtel Weber by a thin, insignificant-looking little man, wearing a bowler hat and grey gloves. The net was gradually being drawn around the famous spy, who had not yet left his room, and was still unconscious of how completely he was now surrounded. Truth to tell, the thin man in black was Berton, a detective inspector of the political department of the Sûreté, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Thus the four men waited impatiently in the hotel, Berton of the Sûreté having telephoned from the little bureau of the proprietor for two plain-clothes agents from the nearest poste of police.

At last Flobecq, on descending the stairs, was met by a waiter who told him that a gentleman was awaiting him in the little private salon on the first floor.

In surprise, he turned into the room indicated, and there came face to face with Hubert Waldron. His cheeks went pale, and he started at the unexpected encounter.

“Ah, m’sieur!” he exclaimed, with a strenuous attempt to conceal his surprise. “It is you—eh?”

“Yes, M’sieur Flobecq,” replied Hubert, at once closing the door. “I have great pleasure in meeting you again. You see your identity is well-known to me, and I require a few minutes’ private conversation with you.”

And as he uttered these words he placed himself between the spy and the door.

“Well, and what, pray, do you want with me?” asked Flobecq in French, his dark brows quickly knit with a hard, evil expression.

“I want you to hand over to me those letters you have of the Princess Luisa of Savoy,” Waldron said boldly.

The man laughed. He was well-dressed—a good-looking, easy-going figure of that type which always made an impression upon women, but which men instinctively hated.

“I have followed you here from Italy. And at Her Highness’s request I ask you for those letters. I know that you are in treaty with the journalist, Stein, regarding them. He is a dealer in scandals, and if he purchases them will, no doubt, have a ready market for them,” Hubert added.

“Your audacity is really amazing, M’sieur Waldron.”

“It may be. But I have, fortunately, gained knowledge of your heartless deception. I know the whole of the bitter circumstances; of your pretended affection for the Princess, and how you have compelled her to act as your cat’s-paw and become a thief. Further,” and he hesitated for a few seconds, “further, I am also well aware of your position as secret agent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Vienna—a fact of which they are also aware, here in Paris—at the Quai d’Orsay!”

“My dear m’sieur,” laughed the other, folding his arms deliberately and facing the Englishman. “If you think you can bluff me, you are quite welcome to the illusion. The Princess is my friend—as you well know—you admitted it when we met at Brussels.”

“She was your friend. But to-day, you having been revealed as a spy of Italy’s enemy, she is no longer your friend. I am still her friend. And that is the reason of my presence here to-day. You were very clever in your escape from Orvieto, when you left her there in expectation. But there are others equally as evasive, I may assure you.” Waldron stood with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his blue serge suit in an attitude of triumph. He could play the game of bluff equally with anyone, when occasion demanded.

“I shall act exactly as I think proper,” was the spy’s indignant reply.

“You will think proper to hand me over those letters—letters of an innocent girl who has been misled by as clever and cunning a plot as has ever been conceived in the whole history of espionage. I admit that you, Mijoux Flobecq, are an artist. But in this case, you have been betrayed by the patriotism of your unfortunate victim.”

“Ah! She has told you then!” he remarked with a smile of contempt.

“No, I watched and found out for myself,” was Hubert’s reply. “The key plan of which you had so ingeniously contrived to obtain possession, is safe in my hands, and—”

“Because she handed it over to you!” he cried. “Because she grew afraid at the last second. All women do! It seems that her love for me waned,” he added in a strange voice.

“That may be. But can a woman ever really love a man who is suddenly revealed to her as an enemy?” queried the diplomat. “No. You were amazingly clever, M’sieur Flobecq, but your estimate of human nature was entirely wrong. As soon as she knew that you were a spy of Italy’s hereditary enemy, Austria, her love turned to hatred. That was but natural.”

“And she betrayed me?”

“No, she did not. There, you are quite mistaken,” was Hubert’s quick response. “It will surprise you to know that I was in the Hôtel Belle Arti and overheard every word that passed between you. It was there, for the first time, that I realised the truth. And—” He looked straight into the eyes of the spy. ”... and I tell you openly and frankly that I am her friend!”

“Then it was your threat I overheard while speaking to her! Well, and what can you do, pray? She has misled me.”

“Do!” echoed Waldron, still standing with his back to the door of the little, shabbily furnished reading-room. “Do! I merely ask you for those letters.”

“Which you will never get. I have them here safe in my pocket,” and he drew out a bulky envelope which he exhibited in triumph. “At noon to-day I shall sell them to my friend, Stein, who can easily place them in the proper quarter. It will be my revenge, my dear m’sieur,” he laughed.

“And a pretty revenge—eh?—upon a defenceless girl whom you have deceived—whom you have met in all sorts of odd, out-of-the-way places. I saw you together as far away as Wady Haifa, in the Sudan. And I watched you all the time you were together in Egypt.”

“I think that to discuss this affair further is quite useless,” Flobecq said with an annoyed look. “You can rest assured that neither your bluff, nor any other influence that you could bring to bear upon me, would ever induce me to give up the letters to you.”

“That is your decision—eh? Reflect—because your defiance may cost you more than you imagine.”

“Bah! What do I care for you, a mere British diplomat! What do you know of Secret Service ways, or methods?” he laughed.

“I know this,” was Hubert’s reply, “that if you refuse to give back to me the correspondence of your unfortunate victim you will find yourself in a very awkward predicament here in Paris.”

“Bah! You are only bluffing, I repeat! What, do you think I have any fear of you? You diplomats are merely air bubbles of self-importance. You are so easily pricked.” And he turned from Waldron with an expression of supreme contempt.

“Seven months ago there was an incident at Toulon Arsenal—regarding the Admiralty wireless station there—and you escaped,” Hubert remarked in a low, meaning voice.

“Well?”

“Well, that incident is not yet forgotten,” the Englishman said with a curious smile.

“I don’t follow you.”

“Well, in this hotel there are three agents of police now waiting to place you under arrest as a spy of Austria,” he said very quietly; “therefore I think, M’sieur Flobecq, you really must admit that, in this particular game, I just now hold most of the honours—eh?”

The spy’s face darkened. He saw himself checkmated for the first time by a better and more ingenious man.

“You will hand me over those letters at once,” Waldron went on, “or I shall call into this room the inspector of the Sûreté who is anxious to arrest you on charges of espionage. And they have been wanting you now for fully seven months, remember. But they are not yet tired. Oh, dear no! The Sûreté is never tired of waiting. If it is ten years, the penalty for espionage in France is the same!” Hubert added, with a grin of triumph.

In an instant Mijoux Flobecq flew into a passion, declaring that the Englishman should never regain possession of the incriminating correspondence for which he had so heartlessly practised blackmail upon Her Royal Highness.

“I defy you!” he cried with a sneer. “I have arranged the price with my friend, Stein. And he shall have the letters for publication—to reveal to Europe how, even in Royal circles, traitors exist?”

“Traitors!” cried Hubert, advancing towards him threateningly. “Repeat that word, and, by gad! I’ll strangle you—you blackguard! The Princess Luisa is no traitor. You have held her in an evil bondage—you, the agent of your taskmasters in Vienna—you, who with your devilish cunning, hoped to betray Italy into Austria’s hands.”

Hubert Waldron was intensely angry, now that he had cast that outrageous reflection upon Lola’s honour.

“Now, once and for all, I demand those letters?” he added, facing Flobecq very determinedly.

“And I, on my part, refuse to give them to you.”

“Then you are prepared to accept the consequences—eh?”

“Quite.”

“You refuse to release an unfortunate girl from the consequences of a foolish infatuation?”

“She has betrayed me. Therefore I feel myself entirely at liberty to act just as I deem fit.”

“Act as you wish, M’sieur Flobecq, but I warn you that it is at your own peril. I am prepared to endeavour to give you your liberty in exchange for those letters.”

“I have my liberty. I do not wish to bargain for it with you!” laughed the other in open defiance.

“For the last time, I ask you to hand me over that packet.”

“And I refuse.”

“Give the letters to me, I say?” cried Hubert, and, exasperated by the fellow’s demeanour, he sprang suddenly upon him.

He was strong and athletic, and the insults which the spy had cast upon Lola had caused him to lose his temper. His hands were at Flobecq’s throat.

A second later, however, the spy drew a revolver, and only just in the nick of time did the Englishman manage to turn the barrel aside ere it went off.

Then ensued a fierce and desperate struggle for the weapon—indeed a fight for life.

Hubert held Flobecq’s right wrist in a grip of iron, at the same time endeavouring to obtain possession of the envelope containing the letters. In this latter, however, he was unsuccessful.

Again the weapon went off in the mêlée, the bullet embedding itself in the ceiling, while the two men, locked in each other’s deadly embrace, fell against a table, smashing a large porcelain vase to fragments.

The reports aroused the alarm of the agents of police who, a few seconds later, rushed into the room where they found the two men struggling desperately. But just as they entered, accompanied by the proprietor of the hotel in a state of the utmost alarm, Flobecq discharged his weapon a third time. The bullet struck a huge mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

With the aid of the police agents, Flobecq was, with difficulty, secured, whereupon Hubert—with the one thought uppermost in his mind, that of Lola’s honour—placed his hand swiftly into the inner pocket of his adversary’s coat and abstracted the envelope containing the fateful letters.

“That man is a thief!” yelled the spy, white to the lips with fury. “Arrest him! Arrest him, I say. He has stolen my property.”

Next second, as Hubert drew back and before anyone was aware of it, the man under arrest snatched a heavy police revolver from the hand of one of the men holding him, and fired point-blank at the Englishman.

Again, in the spy’s passion of hatred, his shot went wide of the mark, and Hubert stood unharmed, the letters already safe in his pocket.

In a moment all three men, finding their prisoner armed, drew back. Then in an instant he had freed himself.

His back was set against the wall, and flourishing the heavy weapon he held them all at bay.

“You shan’t take me!” he shrieked in defiance. “Touch me again, any of you, and I’ll shoot you dead!” he shouted in desperation.

And by the distorted expression of his livid face they all knew he meant it.

Berton, the inspector of the Sûreté, made a sudden dash forward, in order to again secure the man so long wanted for espionage, but in less time than it takes to describe the dramatic scene he received a bullet in the shoulder.

Again Flobecq, still holding them all at bay and defying them to arrest him, fired at Waldron, once more missing him, and then firing two further shots at random, one taking effect upon the hand of the elder of the two French agents.

Then the third man, finding his two companions wounded, and himself at the mercy of the frenzied spy, raised his own revolver, took careful aim and fired in self-defence.

The shot took instant effect.

Mijoux Flobecq, the handsome adventurer, shot through the heart, fell forward, face downwards, dead.

Chapter Thirty Four.

The Truth is Told.

At the Quirinale the last State Ball of the season was in full swing.

The Palace was ablaze with light. In the great courtyard, where the sentries paced, there were constant arrivals and departures. All aristocratic and official Rome was there. Smart uniforms were everywhere, and in the great ballroom with its wonderful chandeliers the scene was perhaps the most brilliant of any to be witnessed in the whole of Europe.

In a small salon in the private apartments far removed from the music and glitter of the Court—a delightful and artistic room with white-enamelled walls, and furniture and carpet of old rose—stood Hubert Waldron, who had only arrived back in the Eternal City an hour before. He had hastily changed into uniform, and stood there with Her Royal Highness, Princess Luisa, whose slim figure was a tragic one, notwithstanding her handsome Court gown of white satin, and the black watered ribbon of her decoration in her corsage.

He had just related, as briefly as he could, the exciting chase from Orvieto, a thousand miles, to Paris, and the dramatic meeting in the frowsy little hotel in the Rue d’Amsterdam.

“And here, Lola, are your letters,” he said calmly, drawing from his tunic the envelope which he had sealed in Paris without prying into its contents, save to reassure himself that they were letters in the handwriting of the woman he loved so devotedly.

“My letters!” she gasped, casting her ivory fan aside and eagerly taking them in her gloved and trembling hands. “Then—then you have recovered them!” she cried in sudden glee. “You—you have saved me, Mr Waldron, for to-night I—I confess to you, my friend—I had the fixed intention to end it all. I could not bear to live and face the terrible exposure, for I knew not from day to day if one of the scurrilous papers in Paris might print my letters—the confession of a woman who, though a Princess of a Royal House, was also a spy, because she was fooled—tricked into love!”

“Lola,” he said, still speaking earnestly and very calmly, “you need have no further fear of that man. He came near bringing you to ruin—nay to death. But the peril is now at an end.”

“At an end—how?” she asked.

“I begged of you to leave all to me—that I would settle the account with him. I have brought you back your letters,” he said, very gravely. “You need have no further fear, because the scoundrel who made such dastardly pretence of loving you, Lola, is dead!”

“Dead!” she gasped with startled, wide-open eyes.

“Yes; shot dead by the Paris police who had wanted him for espionage. He fired at them, and they retaliated in self-defence.”

“Then my enemy is dead!” she exclaimed in a whisper, standing motionless, her big, expressive eyes fixed straight before her.

“Yes. The peril which threatened you, Lola, and the very existence of the Italian nation, is at an end.”

“And you, Mr Waldron,” she cried in a voice broken by emotion, turning to him suddenly with hand outstretched, “you have risked your own life and have averted a war in Europe, of which I, in my unfortunate ignorance, was so nearly the cause.”

“Because your actions and your movements have been—well, just a little too unconventional,” he laughed, bowing gallantly over her outstretched hand and kissing it fervently.

She knew the truth. She knew how devotedly the Englishman loved her. And she, in return, reciprocated his affection. Had she not, in that moment of her ecstasy, responded to his well-remembered kisses?

He was holding her hand, gazing long and deeply into those fathomless eyes of hers. He was about to speak—again to confess to her his great all-consuming passion, when a hand was placed upon the door knob and they sprang apart, as of a sudden His Majesty the King, a brilliant figure in his uniform and glittering decorations, entered.

“Ah, Waldron?” he cried in his usual cheery way, “I received your message, and came here to find you. They told me that you were here, with Lola. Well? You have a report to make, I suppose. What is it? Lola,” he said, addressing Her Highness, “I fear I must ask you to leave us. I have some business to talk over with Mr Waldron.”

“I ask Your Majesty’s pardon,” the diplomat said; “but I would beg that Her Royal Highness be allowed to remain. My report closely concerns her.”

“Concerns her! How?”

“If Your Majesty will have patience with me I will explain,” Hubert replied, and then, as briefly and tersely as possible, he related to the King the series of startling and exciting events recorded in the preceding chapters—how Lola, at the instigation of the Austrian spy, Flobecq, in guise of lover, was induced to go in secret to the private safe of the Minister of War and thence abstract the plans of the new frontier defences. He explained, too, how these being found useless without the key—though in secret Austria mobilised her army in readiness for a descent upon her neighbour at the moment that key was forthcoming—Flobecq, the cunning scoundrel in the employ of the Vienna Foreign Office, had blackmailed the unfortunate Princess by threatening to publish her letters if she did not dare further—and steal the key plan.

“And you, it seems, entered His Excellency’s cabinet just in the very nick of time,” the King said, both surprised yet gratified. “Yes, Waldron, I am seldom mistaken in my man,” he went on, “and when I called you and asked you to assist me, as your respected father assisted my own father, I felt that I could trust you. My confidence has not been misplaced. By your staunch friendship to me—not loyalty, because you are loyal only to your own Sovereign, my good brother—you have saved my beloved nation, saved an international complication which must have cost Europe a terrible war. And more—you have saved my madcap little niece’s honour. And why?” he demanded suddenly.

Hubert did not answer for several moments.

“Well, I will be frank, Your Majesty,” he responded. “Because ever since we met in Egypt and I believed her to be Lola Duprez, niece of the cantankerous old Gigleux, we have been most excellent friends. I have only done my duty towards her as a friend, and towards you as Sovereign of Italy, at whose Court I am humbly attached as servant of my own King.”

“Waldron!” exclaimed His Majesty, “to-night I sleep securely for the first time for several months. The war-cloud has been dispersed—and by you. You have my heartfelt thanks—the thanks of a man who has the misfortune perhaps of being born a King.” And he gripped the diplomat’s hand warmly in his own, and looked into his face as only one man can look at another who returns thanks from the very depths of his heart. “We can only reflect, Waldron,” added the King in a low, earnest voice, “upon how many lives might have been sacrificed, of what ruin and desolation must have resulted and of the terrible horrors of modern warfare that have been averted by your devotion to Lola, to myself, and to my own beloved Italy!”

But Hubert Waldron was thinking only of Lola. His Majesty’s eulogy was lost upon him.

He bowed low, and declared himself as the devoted servant of Italy and her Sovereign, as his father had been before him.

Again the King grasped his hand, and then and there declared that he bestowed upon him the coveted Grand Cross of the Order of Saints, Maurice and Lazarus, an order which very few of the Italian Cabinet Ministers possessed, and one of the principal distinctions of Italy.

Afterwards His Majesty bade him a cheery addio, and, turning, left the room.

For some moments Hubert stood facing Lola, without speaking.

What could he say?

“Lola,” he exclaimed at last, “there is one point which still remains to be cleared up. Tell me. How did you manage to enter the General’s room while the corporal, Tonini, was there on sentry duty?”

“Tonini knew me well. He is engaged to marry my maid, Renata. I entered the room on pretence of paying a visit to General Cataldi, and finding that His Excellency was not there, I waited in the room a few minutes, during which time I opened the safe. Then I called him in and made him promise solemnly to tell no one that I had paid the General a visit, explaining that I had come to crave the promotion of one of my friends—a captain of cavalry—and was not desirous of the fact becoming public property. He understood the scandal at which I hinted, and therefore loyally preserved silence—even when he knew that the plans had been stolen. Imagine my horror when I realised the full gravity of my action. I had handed over the plans to Austria! At once—ignorant of the inquiry you were making—I called a man I knew, Pietro Olivieri, an ex-police officer, and begged him to assist me to recover the plans. But, alas! he failed. And then Flobecq, holding out the threat to publish my letters, forced me to make an attempt to gain the tracings which formed the key.” And she drew her hand wearily across her brow as though to clear her brain of those terrible memories.

A few moments later Hubert stretched forth his hand in farewell.

He loved her with all his heart and all his soul, but, alas! he knew too well the wide barrier of birth that lay between them.

He saw, too, in Lola’s face a sweet, passionate love look, that one expression which a woman can never feign. By that alone he knew his affection was reciprocated.

The cup of bitterness was at his lips. But with supreme self-control he dashed it from him.

To speak would only bring upon her grief and sorrow. Yes. Silence was best, after all, even though it cost him all that he held most dear in the world—best for her sake, and for his.

He took her white-gloved hand in his, and bowing over it till his lips touched its back, wished her a courtly addio.

“But how can I ever thank you sufficiently for saving me, Hubert?” she cried, addressing him by his Christian name, hot tears welling in her great dark eyes.

“I desire no thanks, Lola,” was his low, earnest reply. “If sometimes you remember me as your friend—as your most true, and most devoted friend—then that is an all-sufficient recompense for me.”

His voice trembled with emotion and she saw a strange expression at the corners of his mouth.

“But I will see you soon—to-morrow—eh? Where?” she said eagerly.

“No,” he answered briefly. “I am leaving Rome.”

“Leaving Rome!” she echoed in dismay.

“Yes. I am applying for transfer to another post. There are reasons why I cannot remain here any longer. I could not bear it. You know why.” And he looked her straight in the face, still holding her hand strongly in his.

She averted her gaze and sighed deeply.

He saw the hot tears upon her cheeks, therefore slowly he drew her towards him in his strong arms, and impressing one last fervent kiss upon her cold white brow, released her, and with bowed head left the room with a whispered:

“Addio—addio, my own beloved!”

The door closed, and for a moment she stood motionless as a statue.

Then in sudden frenzy, with wild despair in her eyes, she threw herself upon her face on the rose-coloured silk couch, and there burst into a fit of violent sobbing—sobbing as though her young heart would break.

The sun of her life had, at that moment, been suddenly extinguished.

Several years have now brought their changes.

A new King rules in Italy. He has a new entourage and a new Cabinet, but the Princess Luisa stills lives at the Palace, sweet, handsome, yet ever pale and thoughtful.

Her acts of charity and her blameless life have rendered her highly popular in the Eternal City, and when she drives out in one of the royal automobiles the men raise their hats and the populace cry after her, “Viva Luisa! Viva Luisa di Savoia!”

The giddy world of Rome has often wondered why Her Royal Highness, so bright and vivacious, has never married, though her name has frequently been coupled by gossips with that of one or other of the eligible Royal Princes of Europe, notably the Crown Prince of Saxony.

The truth, however, has never leaked out, for his late Majesty, King Umberto, who alone knew his niece’s secret, never betrayed it, even to his Queen.

Sir Hubert Waldron, K.C.M.G., is now British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, yet still a bachelor. In diplomatic circles it has long been a matter of surprise that he has never taken to himself a wife, for many wealthy women are known to have set their caps at him.

However, the world is in ignorance that the plain disc of gold which he wears upon his watch-chain, though it has not the appearance of a locket, nevertheless is one, and opens with a cunningly concealed spring. Within, on one side, is an exquisite little ivory miniature of the Princess Luisa, while on the other two simple words are engraved upon the gold case—“For Ever.”

Her Royal Highness wears an exact replica—except that it contains a portrait of Hubert Waldron—concealed beneath her corsage, the one talisman which never leaves her either by night or by day.

Though Europe divides them, and the barrier of birth can never be bridged, the little golden lockets form the hidden link which still connects their lives.

When either gaze upon the other’s pictured face, as oftens happens, memories from out the misty past arise. Those engraved words are as a message passing between them—a promise that will never be broken, the pledge of a passionate and unsuspected royal romance—

“FOR EVER.”

The End.

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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Chapter 18

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Chapter 19

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Chapter 20

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Chapter 21

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Chapter 22

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Chapter 23

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Chapter 24

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Chapter 25

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Chapter 26

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Chapter 27

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Chapter 28

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Chapter 29

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Chapter 30

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Chapter 31

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Chapter 32

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Chapter 33

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Chapter 34

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