William Le Queux (continued 2)

“A State ball, your Highness. At least they said so in the servants’ hall.”

The Princess glanced at the little silver timepiece, for she feared that her presence was imperative, even though she detested all such functions, where she knew she would meet that brilliant crowd of men and women, all of them her sworn enemies. What Steinbach had told her in confidence had lifted the scales from her eyes. There was a wide and cleverly-contrived conspiracy against her.

She took her fair-haired child in her arms, while Allen, with deft fingers, took off her hat and veil. Her maids were awaiting her in her own room, but she preferred to see Ignatia before it was too late to disturb the little one’s sleep. With the pretty, blue-eyed little thing clinging around her neck, she paced the room with it, speaking, in German, as every fond mother will speak to the one she adores.

Though born to the purple, an Imperial Princess, Claire was very human after all. She regretted always that she was not as other women were, allowed to be her own mistress, and to see and to tend to her child’s wants instead of being compelled so often to leave her in the hands of others, who, though excellent servants, were never as a mother.

She sent Allen upon a message to the other end of the palace in order to be alone with the child, and when the door closed she kissed its soft little face fondly again and again, and then burst into tears. Those Court sycophants were conspiring, to drive her away—perhaps even to part her from the only one for whom she entertained a spark of affection. Many of her enemies were women. Could any of them really know all that was meant by a mother’s heart?

Prince Ferdinand-Leopold-Joseph-Marie, her husband, seldom, if ever, saw the child. For weeks he never mentioned its existence, and when he did it was generally with an oath, in regret that it was not a son and an heir to the throne.

In his paroxysms of anger he had cursed her and his little daughter, and declared openly that he hated the sight of them both. But she was ever patient. Seldom she responded to his taunts or his sarcasm, or resented his brutal treatment. She was philosophic enough to know that she had a heavy burden to bear, and for the sake of her position as future Queen of Marburg she must bear it bravely.

Allen was absent fully a quarter of an hour, during which time she spoke continually to little Ignatia, pacing up and down the room with her.

The child, seeing her mother’s tears, stared at her with her big, wide-open eyes.

“Why does mother cry?” she asked in her childish voice, stroking her cheek.

“Because mother is not happy, darling,” was the Princess’s sad answer. “But,” she added, brightening up, “you are happy, aren’t you? Allen has bought you such a beautiful doll, she tells me.”

“Yes, mother,” the child answered. “And to-morrow, Allen promises, if I am very good, that we will go to buy a perambulator for my dolly to ride in. Won’t that be nice?”

“Oh, it will! But you must be very, very good—and never cry, like mother, will you?”

“No,” answered the little one. “I’ll never cry, like mother does.”

And the unhappy woman, hearing the child’s lisping words, swallowed the great lump that arose in her throat. It was surely pathetic, that admission of a heart-broken mother to her child. It showed that even though an Imperial Princess, she was still a womanly woman, just as any good woman of the people.

A few moments later Allen returned with the reply to the message she had sent to the aged King.

“His Majesty says that, though regretting your Imperial Highness is tired after her journey, yet your presence with the Crown Prince at the ball is imperative.” Claire sighed with a heavy heart, saying,—

“Very well, Allen. Then we will put Ignatia to bed, for I must go at once and dress,” and she passed her hand across her hot, wearied brow.

Again and again she kissed the child, and then, having put her back into her cot, over which was the royal crown of Marburg in gold, she bade the infant Princess good-night, and went along to eat a hasty dinner—for she was hungry after her eighteen-hour journey—and afterwards to put herself in the charge of her quick-handed maids, to prepare her for the brilliant function of that evening.

Two hours later, when she swept into the magnificent Throne Room, a brilliant, beautiful figure in her Court gown of cream, and wearing her wonderful tiara, her face was as stern and haughty as any of those members of the royal family present. With her long train rustling behind her, and with her orders and ribbons giving the necessary touch of colour to her bodice, she took up her position beside her husband, a fair-headed, round-faced, slight-moustached man, in a dark-blue uniform, and wearing a number of orders. His face was flat and expressionless.

Though they had not met for a week, no word of greeting escaped him. They stood side by side, as though they were strangers. He eyed her quickly, and his countenance turned slightly pale, as though displeased at her presence.

Yet the whole assembly, even though hating her, could not but admire her neat waist, her splendid figure, and matchless beauty. In the whole of the Courts of Europe there was no prettier woman than the Crown Princess Claire; her figure was perfect, and her gait always free—the gait of a princess. Even when dressed in her maid’s dresses, as she had done on occasion, her walk betrayed her. Imperial blood can seldom be disguised.

The hundred women, those German princesses, duchesses, countesses, baronesses, to each of whom attached their own particular scandal—the brilliant little world that circled around the throne—looked at her standing there with her husband, her hands clasped before her, and envied her looks, figure, position—everything. She was a marked woman.

The proud, haughty expression upon her face as she regarded the assembly was only assumed. It was the mask she was compelled to wear at Court at the old King’s command. Her nature was the reverse of haughty, yet the artificiality of palace life made it necessary for the Crown Princess to be as unapproachable as the Queen herself.

The guests were filing before the white-haired King, the hide-bound old martyr to etiquette, when the Crown Prince spoke to his wife in an undertone, saying roughly, with bitter sarcasm,—

“So you are back? Couldn’t stay away from us longer, I suppose?”

“I remained in Vienna as long as I said I should,” was the sweet-faced woman’s calm reply.

“A pity you didn’t stay there altogether,” he muttered. “You are neither use nor ornament here.”

“You have told me that several times before. Much as I regret it, Ferdinand, my place is here.”

“Yes, at my side—to annoy me,” he said, frowning.

“I regret to cause you any annoyance,” she answered. “It is not intentional, I assure you.”

A foul oath escaped him, and he turned from her to speak with Count Graesal, grand-marechal of the Court. Her face, however, betrayed nothing of his insult. At Court her countenance was always sphinx-like. Only in her private life, in that gorgeous suite of apartments on the opposite side of the palace, did she give way to her own bitter unhappiness and blank despair.

Chapter Seven.

A Shameful Truth.

When at last the brilliant company moved on into the great ballroom she had an opportunity of walking among those men and women who, though they bent before her, cringing and servile, were, she knew, eagerly seeking her ruin. The Ministers, Stuhlmann, Hoepfner, and Meyer, all three creatures of the King, bowed low to her, but she knew they were her worst enemies. The Countess Hupertz, a stout, fair-haired, masculine-looking woman, also bent before her and smiled—yet this woman had invented the foulest lies concerning her, and spread them everywhere. In all that brilliant assembly she had scarcely one single person whom she could term a friend. And for a very simple reason. Friendliness with the Crown Princess meant disfavour with the King, and none of those place-seekers and sycophants could afford to risk that.

Yet, knowing that they were like a pack of hungry wolves about her, seeking to tear her reputation to shreds and cast her out of the kingdom, she walked among them, speaking with them, and smiling as though she were perfectly happy.

Presently, when the splendid orchestra struck up and dancing commenced, she came across Hinckeldeym, the wily old President of the Council of Ministers, who, on many occasions, had showed that, unlike the others, he regarded her as an ill-used wife. A short, rather podgy, dark-haired man, in Court dress, he bowed, welcomed her back to Treysa, and inquired after her family in Vienna.

Then, as she strolled with him to the farther end of the room, lazily fanning herself with her great ostrich-feather fan, she said in a low voice,—

“Hinckeldeym, as you know, I have few friends here. I wonder whether you are one?”

The flabby-faced old Minister pursed his lips, and glanced at her quickly, for he was a wily man. Then, after a moment’s pause, he said,—

“I think that ever since your Imperial Highness came here as Crown Princess I have been your partisan. Indeed, I thought I had the honour of reckoning myself among your Highness’s friends.”

“Yes, yes,” she exclaimed quickly. “But I have so many enemies here,” and she glanced quickly around, “that it is really difficult for me to distinguish my friends.”

“Enemies!” echoed the tactful Minister in surprise. “What causes your Highness to suspect such a thing?”

“I do not suspect—I know,” was her firm answer as she stood aside with him. “I have learnt what these people are doing. Why? Tell me, Hinckeldeym—why is this struggling crowd plotting against me?”

He looked at her for a moment in silence. He was surprised that she knew the truth.

“Because, your Imperial Highness—because they fear you. They know too well what will probably occur when you are Queen.”

“Yes,” she said in a hard, determined voice. “When I am Queen I will sweep clear this Augean stable. There will be a change, depend upon it. This Court shall be an upright and honourable one, and not, as it now is, a replica of that of King Charles the Second of England. They hate me, Hinckeldeym—they hate me because I am a Hapsbourg; because I try and live uprightly and love my child, and when I am Queen I will show them that even a Court may be conducted with gaiety coupled with decorum.”

The Minister—who, though unknown to her, was, perhaps, her worst enemy, mainly through fear of the future—listened to all she said in discreet silence. It was a pity, he thought, that the conspiracy had been betrayed to her, for although posing as her friend he would have been the first to exult over her downfall. It would place him in a position of safety.

He noted her threat. It only confirmed what the Court had anticipated—namely, that upon the death of the infirm old monarch, all would be changed, and that brilliant aristocratic circle would be sent forth into obscurity—and by an Austrian Archduchess, too!

The Princess Claire unfortunately believed the crafty Hinckeldeym to be her friend, therefore she told him all that she had learnt; of course, not betraying the informer.

“From to-day,” she went on in a hard voice, “my attitude is changed. I will defend myself. Against those who have lied about me, and invented their vile scandals, I will stand as an enemy, and a bitter one. Hitherto I have been complacent and patient, suffering in silence, as so many defenceless women suffer. But for the sake of this kingdom, over which I shall one day be Queen, I will stand firm; and you, Hinckeldeym, must remain my friend.”

“Your Imperial Highness has but to command me,” replied the false old courtier, bowing low with the lie ever ready upon his lips. “I hope to continue as your friend.”

“From the day I first set foot in Treysa, these people have libelled me and plotted my ruin,” she went on. “I know it all. I can give the names of each of my enemies, and I am kept informed of all the scandalous tales whispered into my husband’s ears. Depend upon it that those liars and scandalmongers will in due time reap their reward.”

“I know very little of it,” the Minister declared in a low voice, so that he could not be overheard. “Perhaps, however, your Highness has been indiscreet—has, I mean, allowed these people some loophole through which to cast their shafts?”

“They speak of Leitolf,” she said quite frankly. “And they libel me, I know.”

“I hear to-day that Leitolf is recalled to Vienna, and is being sent as attaché to Rome,” he remarked. “Perhaps it is as well in the present circumstances.”

She looked him straight in the face as the amazing truth suddenly dawned upon her.

“Then you, too, Hinckeldeym, believe that what is said about us is true!” she exclaimed hoarsely, suspecting, for the first time, that the man with the heavy, flabby face might play her false.

And she had confessed to him, of all men, her intention of changing the whole Court entourage the instant her husband ascended the throne! She saw how terribly injudicious she had been.

But the cringing courtier exhibited his white palms, and with that clever exhibition of sympathy which had hitherto misled her, said,—

“Surely your Imperial Highness knows me sufficiently well to be aware that in addition to being a faithful servant to his Majesty the King, I am also a strong and staunch friend of yours. There may be a plot,” he said; “a vile, dastardly plot to cast you out from Marburg. Yet if you are only firm and judicious, you must vanquish them, for they are all cowards—all of them.” She believed him, little dreaming that the words she had spoken that night had sealed her fate. Heinrich Hinckeldeym was a far-seeing man, the friend of anybody who had future power in his hands—a man who was utterly unscrupulous, and who would betray his closest friend when necessity demanded. And yet, with his courtly manner, his fat yet serious face, his clever speech, and his marvellous tact, he had deceived more than one of the most eminent diplomatists in Europe, including even Bismarck himself.

He looked at her with his bright, ferret-like eyes, debating within himself when the end of her should be. He and his friends had already decided that the blow was soon to be struck, for every day’s delay increased their peril. The old King’s malady might terminate fatally at any moment, and once Queen, then to remove her would be impossible.

She had revealed to him openly her intention, therefore he was determined to use in secret her own words as a weapon against her, for he was utterly unscrupulous.

The intrigues of Court had a hundred different undercurrents, but it was part of his policy to keep well versed in them all. His finger was ever upon the pulse of that circle about the throne, while he was also one of the few men in Marburg who had the ear of the aristocratic old monarch with whom etiquette was as a religion.

“Your Imperial Highness is quite right in contemplating the Crown Prince’s accession to the throne,” he said ingeniously, in order to further humour her. “The doctors see the King daily, and the confidential reports made to us Ministers are the reverse of reassuring. In a few months at most the end must come—suddenly in all probability. Therefore the Crown Prince should prepare himself for the responsibilities of the throne, when your Highness will be able to repay your enemies for all their ill-nature.”

“I shall know the way, never fear,” she answered in a low, firm voice. “To-day their power is paramount, but to-morrow mine shall be. I shall then live only for my husband and my child. At present I am living for a third reason—to vindicate myself.”

“Then your Imperial Highness contemplates changing everything?” he asked simply, but with the ingenuity of a great diplomatist. Every word of her reply he determined to use in order to secure her overthrow.

“I shall change all Ministers of State, Chamberlains, every one, from the Chancellor of the Orders down to the Grand Master of the Ceremonies. They shall all go, and first of all the dames du palais—those women who have so cleverly plotted against me, but of whose conspiracy I am now quite well aware.” And she mentioned one or two names—names that had been revealed to her by the obscure functionary Steinbach.

The Minister saw that the situation was a grave, even desperate one. He was uncertain how much she knew concerning the plot, and was therefore undecided as to what line he should adopt. In order to speak in private they left the room, pacing the long, green-carpeted corridor that, enclosed in glass, ran the whole length of that wing of the palace. He tried by artful means to obtain from her further details, but she refused to satisfy him. She knew the truth, and that, she declared, was all sufficient.

Old Hinckeldeym was a power in Marburg. For eighteen years he had been the confidant of the King, and now fearing his favour on the wane, had wheedled himself into the good graces of the Crown Prince, who had given him to understand, by broad hints, that he would be only too pleased to rid himself of the Crown Princess. Therefore, if he could effect this, his future was assured. And what greater weapon could he have against her than her own declaration of her intention to sweep clear the Court of its present entourage?

He had assuredly played his cards wonderfully well. He was a past master in deception and double-dealing. The Princess, believing that he was at least her friend, had spoken frankly to him, never for one moment expecting a foul betrayal.

Yet, if the truth were told, it was that fat-faced, black-eyed man who had first started the wicked calumny which had coupled her name with Leitolf; he who had dropped scandalous hints to the Crown Prince of his beautiful wife’s penchant for the good-looking chef du cabinet; he who had secretly stirred up the hostility against the daughter of the Austrian Archduke, and whose fertile brain had invented lies which were so ingeniously concocted that they possessed every semblance of truth.

A woman of Imperial birth may be a diplomatist, versed in all the intricacies of Court etiquette and Court usages, but she can never be at the same time a woman of the world. Her education is not that of ordinary beings; therefore, as in the case of the Princess Claire, though shrewd and tactful, she was no match for the crafty old Minister who for eighteen years had directed the destiny of that most important kingdom of the German Empire.

The yellow-haired Countess Hupertz, one of Hinckeldeym’s puppets, watched the Princess and Minister walking in the corridor, and smiled grimly. While the orchestra played those dreamy waltzes, the tragedy of a throne was being enacted, and a woman—a sweet, good, lovable woman, upright and honest—was being condemned to her fate by those fierce, relentless enemies by which she was, alas! surrounded.

As she moved, her splendid diamonds flashed and glittered with a thousand fires, for no woman in all the Court could compare with her, either for beauty or for figure. And yet her husband, his mind poisoned by those place-hunters—a man whose birth was but as a mushroom as compared with that of Claire, who possessed an ancestry dating back a thousand years—blindly believed that which they told him to be the truth.

De Trauttenberg, in fear lest she might lose her own position, was in Hinckeldeym’s pay, and what she revealed was always exaggerated—most of it, indeed, absolutely false.

The Court of Marburg had condemned the Crown Princess Claire, and from their judgment there was no appeal. She was alone, defenceless—doomed as the victim of the jealousies and fears of others.

Returning to the ballroom, she left the Minister’s side; and, by reason of etiquette, returned to join that man in the dark-blue uniform who cursed her—the man who was her husband, and who ere long was to reign as sovereign.

Stories of his actions, many of them the reverse of creditable, had reached her ears, but she never gave credence to any of them. When people discussed him she refused to listen. He was her husband, the father of her little Ignatia, therefore she would hear nothing to his discredit.

Yes. Her disposition was quiet and sweet, and she was always loyal to him. He, however, entirely misjudged her.

An hour later, when she had gone to her room, her husband burst in angrily and ordered the two maids out, telling them that they would not be wanted further that night. Then, when the door was closed, he strode up to where she sat before the great mirror, lit by its waxen candles, for Henriette had been arranging her hair for the night.

“Well, woman!” he cried, standing before her, his brows knit, his eyes full of fire, “and what is your excuse to me this time?”

“Excuse?” she echoed, looking at him in surprise and very calmly. “For what, Ferdinand?”

“For your escapade in Vienna!” he said between his teeth. “The instant you had left, Leitolf received a telegram calling him to Wiesbaden, but instead of going there he followed you.”

“Not with my knowledge, I assure you,” she said quickly. “Why do you think so ill of me—why do you always suspect me?” she asked in a low, trembling voice of reproach.

“Why do I suspect you? You ask me that, woman, when you wrote to the man at his hotel, made an appointment, and actually visited him there? One of our agents watched you. Do you deny it?”

“No,” she answered boldly. “I do not deny going to the Count’s hotel. I had a reason for doing so.”

He laughed in her face.

“Of course you had—you, who pretend to be such a good and faithful wife, and such a model mother,” he sneered. “I suppose you would not have returned to Treysa so soon had he not have come back.”

“You insult me!” she cried, rising from her chair, her Imperial blood asserting itself.

“Ah!” he laughed, taunting her. “You don’t like to hear the truth, do you? It seems that the scandal concerning you has been discovered in Vienna, for De Lindenau has ordered the fellow to return to the diplomatic service, and is sending him away to Rome.”

She was silent. She saw how every word and every action of hers was being misconstrued.

“Speak, woman!” he cried, advancing towards her. “Confess to me that you love the fellow.”

“Why, Ferdinand, do you wish me to say what is untrue?” she asked in a low voice, quite calm again, notwithstanding his threatening attitude.

“Ah, you deny it! You lie to me, even when I know the truth—when all the Court discuss your affection for the fellow whom you yourself introduced among us. You have been with him in Paris. Deny that!”

“I deny nothing that is true,” she answered. “I only deny your right to charge me with what is false.”

“Oh yes,” he cried. “You and your brat are a pretty pair. You believe we are all blind; but, on the contrary, everything is known. Confess!” he muttered between his teeth. “Confess that you love that man.”

She was silent, standing before him, her beautiful eyes fixed upon the carpet.

He repeated his question in a harder tone than before, but still she uttered no word. She was determined not to repeat the denial she had already given, and she recognised that he had some ulterior motive in wringing from her a confession which was untrue.

“You refuse to speak!” he cried in a quick paroxysm of anger. “Then take that!” and he struck her with his fist a heavy blow full in the face, with such force, indeed, that she reeled, and fell backwards upon the floor.

“Another time perhaps you’ll speak when I order you to,” he said through his set teeth, as with his foot he kicked her savagely twice, the dull blows sounding through the big, gilt-ceilinged room.

Then with a hard laugh of scorn upon his evil lips the brute that was a Crown Prince, and heir to a European throne, turned and left with an oath upon his lips, as he slammed the door after him.

In the big, gorgeous room, where the silence was broken by the low ticking of the ormolu clock, poor, unhappy Claire lay there where she had fallen, motionless as one dead. Her beautiful face was white as death, yet horribly disfigured by the cowardly blow, while from the corner of her mouth there slowly trickled a thin red stream.

Chapter Eight.

Is Mainly about the Count.

Next morning, when she saw her reflection in the mirror, she sighed heavily, and hot tears sprang to her eyes.

Her beautiful countenance, bruised and swollen, was an ugly sight; her mouth was cut, and one of her even, pretty teeth had been broken by the cowardly blow.

Henriette, the faithful Frenchwoman, had crept back to her mistress’s room an hour after the Crown Prince had gone, in order to see if her Highness wanted anything, when to her horror she discovered her lying insensible where she had been struck down.

The woman was discreet. She had often overheard the Prince’s torrents of angry abuse, and in an instant grasped the situation. Instead of alarming the other servants, she quickly applied restoratives, bathed her mistress’s face tenderly in eau de Cologne, washing away the blood from the mouth, and after half an hour succeeded in getting her comfortably to bed.

She said nothing to any one, but locked the door and spent the remainder of the night upon the sofa near her Princess.

While Claire was seated in her wrap, taking her chocolate at eight o’clock next morning, the Countess de Trauttenberg, her husband’s spy, who probably knew all that had transpired, entered with the engagement-book.

She saw what a terrible sight the unhappy woman presented, yet affected not to notice it.

“Well, Trauttenberg?” asked the Princess in a soft, weary voice, hardly looking up at her, “what are our engagements to-day?”

The lady-in-waiting consulted the book, which upon its cover bore the royal crown above the cipher “C,” and replied,—

“At eleven, the unveiling of the monument to Schilling the sculptor in the Albert-Platz; at one, luncheon with the Princess Alexandrine, to meet the Duchess of Brunswick-Lunebourg; at four, the drive; and to-night, ‘Faust,’ at the Opera.”

Her Highness sighed. The people, the enthusiastic crowd who applauded her, little knew how wearying was that round of daily duties, how soul-killing to a woman with a broken heart. She was “their Claire,” the woman who was to be their Queen, and they believed her to be happy!

“Cancel all my engagements,” she said. “I shall not go out to-day. Tell the Court newsman that I am indisposed—a bad cold—anything.”

“As your Imperial Highness commands,” responded De Trauttenberg, bowing, and yet showing no sign that she observed the disfiguration of her poor face.

The woman’s cold formality irritated her.

“You see the reason?” she asked meaningly, looking into her face.

“I note that your Imperial Highness has—has met with a slight accident,” she said. “I trust it is not painful.”

That reply aroused the fire of the Hapsbourg blood within her veins. The woman was her bitter enemy. She had lied about her, and had poisoned her husband’s mind against her. And yet she was helpless. To dismiss her from her duties would only be a confirmation of what the woman had, no doubt, alleged.

It was upon the tip of her tongue to charge her openly as an enemy and a liar. It was that woman, no doubt, who had spied upon her when she had called upon Count Leitolf, and who on her return to Treysa had gone straight to the Crown Prince with a story that was full of vile and scandalous inventions.

“Oh, dear, no,” she said, managing to control her anger by dint of great effort. “It is not at all painful, I assure you. Perhaps, Trauttenberg, you had better go at once and tell the newsman, so that my absence at the Schilling unveiling will be accounted for.”

Thus dismissed, the woman, with her false smiles and pretended sympathy, went forth, and the journals through Germany that day reported, with regret, that the Crown Princess Claire of Marburg was confined to her room, having caught a severe chill on her journey from Vienna, and that she would probably remain indisposed for a week.

When her maids had dressed her she passed on into her gorgeous little blue-and-gold boudoir, her own sanctum, for in it were all the little nick-nacks, odds and ends which on her marriage she had brought from her own home at Wartenstein. Every object reminded her of those happy days of her youth, before she was called upon to assume the shams of royal place and power; before she entered that palace that was to her but a gilded prison.

The long windows of the room looked out upon the beautiful gardens and the great lake, with its playing fountains beyond, while the spring sunlight streaming in gave it an air of cheerfulness even though she was so despondent and heavy of heart. The apartment was gorgeously furnished, as indeed was the whole of the great palace. Upon the backs of the chairs, embroidered in gold upon the damask, was the royal crown and cipher, while the rich carpet was of pale pastel blue. For a long time she stood at the window, looking out across the park.

She saw her husband in his cavalry uniform riding out with an escort clattering behind him, and watched him sadly until he was out of sight. Then she turned and glanced around the cosy room which everywhere bore traces of her artistic taste and refinement. Upon the side-tables were many photographs, signed portraits of her friends, reigning sovereigns, and royal princes; upon the little centre-table a great old porcelain bowl of fresh tea-roses from the royal hot-houses. Her little buhl escritoire was littered with her private correspondence—most of it being in connection with charities in various parts of the kingdom in which she was interested, or was patroness.

Of money, or of the value of it, she knew scarcely anything. She was very wealthy, of course, for her family were one of the richest in Europe, while the royal house of Marburg was noted for its great wealth; yet she had never in her life held in her possession more than a few hundred marks at a time. Her bills all went to the official of the household whose duty it was to examine and pay them, and to charities she sent drafts through that same gold-spectacled official.

She often wondered what it was like to be poor, to work for a daily wage like the people she saw in the street and in the theatres. They seemed bright, contented, happy, and at least they had their freedom, and loved and married whom they chose.

Only the previous night, when she had entered her carriage at the station, a working-man had held his little child up to her for her to pat its head. She had done so, and then sighed to compare the difference between the royal father and that proud father of the people.

Little Ignatia, sweet and fresh, in her white frock and pale pink sash, was presently brought in by Allen to salute her mother, and the latter snatched up the child gladly in her arms and smothered its chubby face with fond kisses.

But the child noticed the disfigured countenance, and drew herself back to look at it.

“Mother is hurt,” she said in English, in her childish speech. “Poor mother!”

“Yes, I fell down, darling,” she answered. “Wasn’t that very unfortunate? Are you sorry?”

“Very sorry poor mother is hurt,” answered the child. “And, why!—one of poor mother’s tooths have gone.” The Princess saw that Allen was looking at her very hard, therefore she turned to her and explained,—

“It is nothing—nothing; a slight accident. I struck myself.”

But the child stroked its mother’s face tenderly with the soft, chubby little hand, saying,—

“Poor mother must be more careful another time or I shall scold her. And Allen will scold her too.”

“Mother will promise to be more careful,” she assured the little one, smiling. And then, seating herself, listened for half an hour to the child’s amusing prattle, and her joyous anticipation of the purchase of a perambulator for her dolly.

With tender hands the Crown Princess retied the broad pink ribbon of the sash, and presently produced some chocolates from the silver bon-bon box which she kept there on purpose for her little one.

And Allen, the rather plain-faced Englishwoman, who was the best of nurses, stood by in silence, wondering how such an accident could have happened to her Imperial mistress, but, of course, unable to put any question to her.

“You may take Ignatia to buy the perambulator, Allen,” said she at last in English. “Get a good one; the best you can. And after luncheon let me see it. I shall not go out to-day, so you can bring the Princess back to me at two o’clock.”

“Very well, your Highness.”

And both she and the child withdrew, the latter receiving the maternal kiss and caramels in each hand.

Again alone, Claire sat for a long time in deep thought. The recollection of those cruel, bitter accusations which her husband had uttered was still uppermost in her mind. What her humble friend Steinbach had told her was, alas! only too true. At Court it was said that she loved Leitolf, and the Crown Prince believed the scandalous libel.

“Ah, if Ferdinand only knew!” she murmured to herself. “If he could only read my heart! Then he would know the truth. Perhaps, instead of hating me as he does, he would be as forbearing as I try to be. He might even try to love me. Yet, alas!” she added bitterly, “such a thing cannot be. The Court of Marburg have decided that, in the interests of their own future, I must be ruined and disgraced. It is destiny, I suppose,” she sighed; “my destiny!”

Then she was silent, staring straight before her at Bronzino’s beautiful portrait of the Duchess Eleanor on the wall opposite. The sound of a bugle reached her, followed by the roll of the drums as the palace guard was changed. The love of truth, the conscientiousness which formed so distinct a feature in Claire’s character, and mingled with its picturesque delicacy a certain firmness and dignity, she maintained consistently always.

The Trauttenberg returned, but she dismissed her for the day, and when she had left the boudoir the solitary woman murmured bitterly aloud,—

“A day’s leave will perhaps allow you to plot and conspire further against the woman to whom you owe everything, and upon whose charity your family exist. Go and report to my husband my appearance this morning, and laugh with your friends at my unhappiness!” She rose and paced the room, her white hands clasped before her in desperation.

“Carl! Carl!” she cried in a hoarse, low voice. “I have only your indiscretion to thank for all this! And yet have I not been quite as indiscreet? Why, therefore, should I blame you? No,” she said in a whisper, after a pause, “it is more my own fault than yours. I was blind, and you loved me. I foolishly permitted you to come here, because your presence recalled all the happiness of the past—of those sweet, idyllic days at Wartenstein, when we—when we loved each other, and our love was but a day-dream never to be realised. I wonder whether you still recollect those days, as I remember them—those long rambles over the mountains alone by the by-paths that I knew from my childhood days, and how we used to stand together hand in hand and watch the sinking sun flashing upon the windows of the castle far away. Nine years have gone since those days of our boy-and-girl love—nine long, dark years that have, I verily believe, transformed my very soul. One by one have all my ideals been broken and swept away, and now I can only sit and weep over the dead ashes of the past. The past—ah! what that means to me—life and love and freedom. And the future?” she sighed. “Alas! only black despair, ignominy, and shame.” Again she halted at the window, and hot tears coursed down her pale cheeks. Those words, uttered almost without consciousness on her own part, contained the revelation of a life of love, and disclosed the secret burden of a heart bursting with its own unuttered grief. She was repulsed, she was forsaken, she was outraged where she had bestowed her young heart with all its hopes and wishes. She was entangled inextricably in a web of horrors which she could not even comprehend, yet the result seemed inevitable.

“These people condemn me! They utter their foul calumnies, and cast me from them unjustly,” she cried, pushing her wealth of fair hair from her brow in her desperation. “Is there no justice for me? Can a woman not retain within her heart the fond remembrance of the holy passion of her youth—the only time she has loved—without it being condemned as a sin? without—”

The words died on her dry lips, for at that moment there was a tap at the door, and she gave permission to enter.

One of the royal servants in gorgeous livery bowed and advanced, presenting to her a small packet upon a silver salver, saying,—

“The person who brought this desired that it should be given into your Imperial Highness’s hands at once.”

She took the packet, and the man withdrew.

A single glance was sufficient to show her that the gummed address label had been penned by Count Carl Leitolf’s own hand. Her heart beat quickly as she cut the string and opened the packet, to find within a book—a dull, uninteresting, philosophical treatise in German. There was no note or writing of any kind.

She ran through the leaves quickly, and then stood wondering. Why had he sent her that? The book was one that she certainly could never read to understand. Published some fifteen years before, it bore signs of not being new. She was much puzzled.

That Leitolf had a motive in sending it to her she had no doubt. But what could it denote? Again and again she searched in it to find some words or letters underlined—some communication meant for her eye alone.

Presently, utterly at a loss to understand, she took up the brown-paper wrapping, and looked again at the address. Yes, she was not mistaken. It was from Carl.

For a few moments she held the paper in her hand, when suddenly she detected that the gummed address label had only been stuck on lightly by being wetted around the edge, and a thought occurred to her to take it off and keep it, together with the book.

Taking up the large ivory paper-knife, she quickly slipped it beneath the label and removed it, when to her astonished eyes there were presented some written words penned across the centre, where the gum had apparently been previously removed.

The words, for her eye alone, were in Carl’s handwriting, lightly written, so that they should not show through the label.

The message—the last message from the man who loved her so fondly, and whose heart bled for her in her gilded unhappiness—read:—

“Adieu, my Princess. I leave at noon to-day, because you have willed it so. I have heard of what occurred last night. It is common knowledge in the palace. Be brave, dear heart. May God now be your comforter. Recollect, though we shall never again meet, that I shall think ever and eternally of you, my Princess, the sweet-faced woman who was once my own, but who is now, alas! lost to me for ever. Adieu, adieu. I kiss your hand, dear heart, adieu!”

It was his last message. His gentle yet manly resignation, the deep pathos of his farewell, told her how full of agony was his own heart. How bitter for her, too, that parting, for now she would stand alone and unprotected, without a soul in whom to confide, or of whom to seek advice.

As she re-read those faintly-traced words slowly and aloud the light died from her face.

“I kiss your hand, dear heart, adieu!” she murmured, and then, her heart overburdened by grief, she burst into a flood of emotion.

Chapter Nine.

The Three Strangers.

By noon all Treysa knew, through the papers, of the indisposition of the Crown Princess; and during the afternoon many smart carriages called at the gates of the royal palace to inquire after her Imperial Highness’s health.

The pompous, scarlet-liveried porters told every one that the Princess had, unfortunately, caught a severe chill on her journey from Vienna, and her medical advisers, although they did not consider it serious, thought, as a precaution, it was best that for a few days she should remain confined to her room.

Meanwhile the Princess, in her silent, stunning, overwhelming sorrow, was wondering how she might call Steinbach. She was unapproachable to any but the Court set, therefore to call a commoner would be an unheard-of breach of etiquette. And yet she desired to see him and obtain his advice. In all that gay, scheming circle about her he was the only person whom she could trust. He was devoted to her service because of the little charitable actions she had rendered him. She knew that he would if necessary lay down his very life in order to serve her, for he was one of the very few who did not misjudge her.

The long day dragged by. She wrote many letters—mostly to her family and friends in Vienna. Then taking a sheet of the royal notepaper from the rack, she again settled herself, after pacing the boudoir in thought for some time, and penned a long letter, which when finished she re-read and carefully corrected, afterwards addressing it in German to “His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, Vienna,” and sealing it with her own private seal.

“He misjudges me,” she said to herself very gravely; “therefore it is only right that I should defend myself.”

Then she rang, and in answer to her summons one of the royal footmen appeared.

“I want a special messenger to carry a letter for me to Vienna. Go at once to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ask the Under-Secretary, Fischer, whether Steinbach may be placed at my service,” she commanded.

“Yes, your Imperial Highness,” answered the clean-shaven, grave-faced man, who bowed and then withdrew.

Allen soon afterwards brought in little Ignatia to show the doll’s perambulator, with which the child was delighted, wheeling it up and down the boudoir. With the little one her mother played for upwards of an hour. The bright little chatterbox caused her to forget the tragedy of her own young life, and Allen’s kindly English ways were to her so much more sympathetic than the stiff formalities of her treacherous lady-in-waiting.

The little one in her pretty speeches told her mother of her adventures in the toy-shops of Treysa, where she was, of course, recognised, and where the shopkeepers often presented her little Royal Highness with dolls and games. In the capital the tiny Ignatia was a very important and popular personage everywhere; certainly more popular with the people than the parrot-faced, hard-hearted old King himself.

Presently, while the Crown Princess was carrying her little one pick-a-pack up and down the room, the child crowing with delight at its mother’s romping and caresses, there came a loud summons at the door, the rap that announced a visitor, and the same grave-faced manservant opened the long white doors, saying,—

“Your Imperial Highness. Will it please you to receive Herr Steinbach of the Department of Foreign Affairs?”

“Bring Herr Steinbach here,” she commanded, and then, kissing the child quickly, dismissed both her and her nurse.

A few moments later the clean-shaven, dark-haired man in sombre black was ushered in, and bending, kissed the Crown Princess’s hand with reverent formality.

As soon as they were alone she turned to him, and, taking up the letter, said,—

“I wish you, Steinbach, to travel to Vienna by the express to-night, obtain audience of the Emperor, and hand this to him. Into no other hand must you deliver it, remember. In order to obtain your audience you may say that I have sent you; otherwise you will probably be refused. If there is a reply, you will bring it; if not—well, it does not matter.”

The quick-eyed man, bowing again, took the letter, glanced at the superscription, and placing it in the inner pocket of his coat, said,—

“I will carry out your Imperial Highness’s directions.”

The Princess crossed to the door and opened it in order to satisfy herself that there were no eavesdroppers outside. Then returning to where the man stood, she said in a low voice,—

“I see that you are puzzled by the injury to my face when the papers are saying I have a chill. I met with a slight accident last night.” Then in the next breath she asked, “What is the latest phase of this conspiracy against me, Steinbach? Tell me. You need conceal nothing for fear of hurting my feelings.”

The man hesitated a moment; then he replied,—

“Well, your Imperial Highness, a great deal of chatter has been circulated regarding Count Leitolf. They now say that, having grown tired of him, you have contrived to have him transferred to Rome.”

“Well?”

“They also say that you visited Leitolf while you were in Vienna. And I regret,” he added, “that your enemies are now spreading evil reports of you among the people. Certain journalists are being bribed to print articles which contain hints against your Highness’s honour.”

“This is outrageous!” she cried. “Having ruined me in the eyes of my husband and the King, they now seek to turn the people against me! It is infamous!”

“Exactly. That really seems their intention. They know that your Highness is the most popular person in the whole Kingdom, and they intend that your popularity shall wane.”

“And I am helpless, Steinbach, utterly helpless,” she cried in desperation. “I have no friend except yourself.”

The man sighed, for he was full of sympathy for the beautiful but unjustly-treated woman, whose brave heart he knew was broken. He was aware of the love-story of long ago between the Count and herself, but he knew her too well to believe any of those scandalous tales concerning her. He knew well how, from the very first days of her married life, she had been compelled to endure sneers, insult, and libellous report. The King and Queen themselves had been so harsh and unbending that she had always held aloof from them. Her every action, either in private or in public, they criticised adversely. She even wore her tiaras, her jewels, and her decorations in a manner with which they found fault; and whatever dress she assumed at the various functions, the sharp-tongued old Queen, merely in order to annoy her, would declare that she looked absolutely hideous. And all this to a bride of twenty-one, and one of the most beautiful girls in Europe!

All, from the King himself down to the veriest palace lackey, had apparently united to crush her, to break her spirit, and drive her to despair.

“I hope, as I declared when we last met, Princess, that I shall ever remain your friend,” said the humble employé of the Foreign Ministry. “I only wish that I could serve you to some good purpose—I mean, to do something that might increase your happiness. Forgive me, your Highness, for saying so.”

“The only way to give me happiness, Steinbach, is to give me freedom,” she said sadly, as though speaking to herself. “Freedom—ah, how I long for it! How I long to escape from this accursed palace, and live as the people live! I tell you,” she added in a low, half-whisper, her pale, disfigured face assuming a deadly earnest look—“I tell you that sometimes I feel—well, I feel that I can’t endure it much longer, and that I’m slowly being driven insane.”

He started at her words, and looked her straight in the face. Should he tell her the truth of an amazing discovery he had made only on the previous day; or was it really kinder to her to hold his tongue?

His very heart bled for her. To her influence he owed all—everything.

No; he could not tell her of that new and dastardly plot against her—at least not yet. Surely it was not yet matured! When he returned from Vienna would be quite time enough to warn her against her increased peril. Now that Leitolf had left her, life might perhaps be a trifle more happy; therefore why should he, of all men, arouse her suspicions and cause her increased anxiety?

Steinbach was a cautious man; his chief fault perhaps was his over-cautiousness. In this affair he might well have spoken frankly; yet his desire always was to avoid hurting the feelings of the woman with whom he so deeply sympathised—the Imperial Princess, to whom he acted as humble, devoted, and secret friend.

“You must not allow such fears to take possession of you,” he urged. “Do not heed what is said regarding you. Remember only that your own conscience is clear, even though your life is, alas, a martyrdom! Let them see that you are heedless and defiant, and ere long they will grow tired of their efforts, and you will assume a power at Court far greater than hitherto.”

“Ah no—never!” she sighed. “They are all against me—all. If they do not crush me by force, they will do so by subterfuge,” declared the unhappy woman. “But,” she added quickly with an effort, “do not let us speak of it further. I can only thank you for telling me the truth. Go to-night to Vienna, and if there is a reply, bring it to me immediately. And stay—what can I do to give you recompense? You have no decoration! I will write at once a recommendation for you for the cross of St. Michael, and whenever you wear it you will, I hope, remember the grateful woman who conferred it upon you.”

“I thank your Highness most truly,” he said. “I have coveted the high honour for many years, and I can in turn only reassure you that any mission you may entrust to me will always be carried out in secret and faithfully.”

“Then adieu, Steinbach,” she said, dismissing him. “Bon voyage, and a quick return from Vienna—my own dear Vienna, where once I was so very happy.”

The man in black bent low and again kissed the back of the soft white hand, then, backing out of the door, bowed again and withdrew.

When Henriette came that evening to change her dress the woman said in French,—

“I ask your Imperial Highness’s pardon, but the Prince, who returned half an hour ago, commanded me to say that he would dine with you this evening, and that there would be three men guests.”

“Guests!” she cried. “But the Prince must be mad! How can I receive guests in this state, Henriette?”

“I explained that your Imperial Highness was not in a fit state to dine in public,” said the maid quietly; “but the Prince replied that he commanded it.”

What fresh insult had her husband in store for her? Did he wish to exhibit her poor bruised face publicly before her friends? It was monstrous!

Yet he had commanded; therefore she allowed Henriette to brush her fair hair and dress her in a black net dinner-gown, one that she often wore when dining in the privacy of her own apartments. Henriette cleverly contrived, by the aid of powder and a few touches of make-up, to half conceal her mistress’s disfiguration; therefore at eight o’clock the Princess Claire entered the fine white-and-gold reception-room, lit by its hundreds of small electric lamps, and there found her husband in uniform, speaking earnestly with three elderly and rather distinguished-looking men in plain evening dress.

Turning, he smiled at her as though nothing had occurred between them, and then introduced his friends by name; but of their names she took no notice. They were strangers, and to her quite uninteresting.

Yet she bowed, smiled, and put on that air of graciousness that, on account of her Court training, she could now assume at will.

The men were from somewhere in North Germany, she detected by their speech, and at the dinner-table the conversation was mostly upon the advance of science; therefore she concluded, from their spectacled appearance and the technical terms they used, that they were scientists from Berlin to whom her husband wished to be kind, and had invited them quite without formality.

Their conversation did not interest her in the least; therefore she remained almost silent throughout the meal, except now and then to address a remark to one or other of her guests. She noticed that once or twice they exchanged strange glances. What could it mean?

At last she rose, and after they had bowed her out they reseated themselves, and all four began conversing in a lower tone in English, lest any servant should enter unexpectedly.

Then ten minutes later, at a signal from the Prince, they rose and passed into the fumoir, a pretty room panelled with cedar-wood, and with great palms and plashing fountains, where coffee was served and cigars were lit.

There the conversation in an undertone in English was again resumed, the Prince being apparently very interested in something which his guests were explaining. Though the door was closed and they believed themselves in perfect privacy, there was a listener standing in the adjoining room, where the cedar panelling only acted as a partition.

It was the Princess Claire. Her curiosity had been aroused as to who the strangers really were.

She could hear them speaking in English at first with difficulty, but presently her husband spoke. The words he uttered were clear. In an instant they revealed to her an awful, unexpected truth.

She held her breath, her left hand upon her bare chest above her corsage, her mouth open, her white face drawn and haggard.

Scarce believing her own ears, she again listened. Could it really be true?

Her husband again spoke. Ah yes! of the words he uttered there could be not the slightest doubt. She was doomed.

With uneven steps she staggered from her hiding-place along the corridor to her own room, and on opening the door she fell forward senseless upon the carpet.

Chapter Ten.

The Peril of the Princess.

That night, six hours later, when the great palace was silent save for the tramping of the sentries, the Princess sat in the big chair at her window, looking out upon the park, white beneath the bright moonbeams.

The room was in darkness, save for the tiny silver lamp burning before the picture of the Madonna. The Trauttenberg had found her lying insensible, and with Henriette’s aid had restored her to consciousness and put her to bed. Then the Countess had gone along to the Crown Prince and told him that his wife had been seized with a fainting fit, and was indisposed.

And the three guests, when he told them, exchanged significant glances, and were silent.

In the darkness, with the moonlight falling across the room, the Princess, in her white silk dressing-gown, sat staring straight before her out upon the fairy-like scene presented below. No word escaped her pale lips, yet she shuddered, and drew her laces about her as though she were chilled.

She was recalling those hard words of her husband’s which she had overheard—the words that revealed to her the ghastly truth. If ever she had suffered during her married life, she suffered at that moment. It was cruel, unjust, dastardly. Was there no love or justice for her?

The truth was a ghastly one. Those three strangers whom her husband had introduced to her table as guests were doctors, two from Berlin and the third from Cologne—specialists in mental disease. They had come there for the purpose of adding their testimony and certificates to that of Veltman, the crafty, thin-nosed Court physician, to declare that she was insane!

What fees were promised those men, or how that plot had been matured, she could only imagine. Yet the grim fact remained that her enemies, with the old King and her husband at their head, intended to confine her in an asylum.

She had heard her husband himself suggest that on the morrow they should meet Veltman, a white-bearded, bald-headed old charlatan whom she detested, and add their testimony to his that she was not responsible for her actions. Could anything be more cold-blooded, more absolutely outrageous? Those words of her husband showed her plainly that in his heart there now remained not one single spark either of affection or of sentiment. He was anxious, at all hazards and at whatever cost, by fair means or foul, to rid himself of her.

Her enemies were now playing their trump card. They had no doubt bribed those three men to certify what was a direct untruth. A royal sovereign can, alas I command the services of any one; for everybody, more or less, likes to render to royalty a service in the hope of decoration or of substantial reward. Most men are at heart place-seekers. Men who are most honest and upright in their daily lives will not hesitate to perjure themselves, or “stretch a point” as they would doubtless put it, where royalty is concerned.

Gazing out into the brilliant moonlight mirrored upon the smooth surface of the lake, she calmly reviewed the situation.

She was in grave peril—so grave, indeed, that she was now utterly bewildered as to what her next step should be. Once certified as a lunatic and shut up in an asylum somewhere away in the heart of the country, all hope of the future would be cut off. She would be entirely at the mercy of those who so persistently and unscrupulously sought her end. Having failed in their other plot against, her, they intended to consign her to a living tomb.

Yet by good fortune had her curiosity been aroused, and she had overheard sufficient to reveal to her the truth. Her face was now hard, her teeth firmly set. Whatever affection she had borne her husband was crushed within her now that she realised how ingeniously he was conspiring against her, and to what length he was actually prepared to go in order to rid himself of her.

She thought of Ignatia, poor, innocent little Ignatia, the child whom its father had cursed from the very hour of its birth, the royal Princess who one day might be crowned a reigning sovereign. What would become of her? Would her own Imperial family stand by and see their daughter incarcerated in a madhouse when she was as sane as they themselves—more sane, perhaps?

She sat bewildered.

With the Emperor against her, however, she had but little to hope for in that quarter. His Majesty actually believed the scandal that had been circulated concerning Leitolf, and had himself declared to her face that she must be mad.

Was it possible that those hot words of the Emperor’s had been seized upon by her husband to obtain a declaration that she was really insane?

Insane? She laughed bitterly to herself at such a thought.

“Ah!” she sighed sadly, speaking hoarsely to herself. “What I have suffered and endured here in this awful place are surely sufficient to send any woman mad. Yet God has been very good to me, and has allowed me still to preserve all my faculties intact. Why don’t they have some assassin to kill me?” she added desperately. “It would surely be more humane than what they now intend.”

Steinbach, her faithful but secret friend, was on his way to Vienna. She wondered whether, after reading the letter, the Emperor would relent towards her? Surely the whole world could not unite as her enemy. There must be human pity and sympathy in the hearts of some, as there was in the heart of the humble Steinbach.

Not one of the thirty millions over whom she would shortly rule was so unhappy as she that night. Beyond the park shone the myriad lights of the splendid capital, and she wondered whether any one living away there so very far from the world ever guessed how lonely and wretched was her life amid all that gorgeous pomp and regal splendour.

Those three grave, spectacled men who had dined at her table and talked their scientific jargon intended to denounce her. They had been quick to recognise that a future king is a friend not to be despised, while the bankers’ drafts that certain persons had promised them in exchange for their signatures as experts would no doubt be very acceptable.

Calmly she reviewed the situation, and saw that, so clearly had her enemies estranged her from every one, she was without one single friend.

For her child’s sake it was imperative for her to save herself. And she could only save herself by flight. But whither? The only course open to her was to leave secretly, taking little Ignatia with her, return to her father, and lay before him the dastardly plot now in progress.

Each hour she remained at the palace increased her peril. Once pronounced insane by those three specialists there would be no hope for her. Her enemies would take good care that she was consigned to an asylum, and that her actions were misconstrued into those of a person insane.

Her heart beat quickly as she thought out the best means of secret escape.

To leave that night was quite impossible. Allen was sleeping with Ignatia; and besides, the guards at the palace gate, on seeing her make her exit at that hour, would chatter among themselves, in addition to which there were no express trains to Vienna in the night. The best train was at seven o’clock in the evening, for upon it was a wagon-lit and dining-car that went through to the Austrian capital, via Eger.

About six o’clock in the evening would be the best time to secure the child, for Allen and Henriette would then both be at dinner, and little Ignatia would be in charge of the under-nurse, whom she could easily send away upon some pretext. Besides, at that hour she could secure some of Henriette’s clothes, and with her veil down might pass the sentries, who would probably take her for the French maid herself.

She calculated that her absence would not be noted by her servants till nearly eight; for there was a Court ball on the morrow, and on nights of the balls she always dressed later.

And so, determined to leave the great palace which to her was a prison, she carefully thought over all the details of her flight. On the morrow she would send to the royal treasurer for a sum of money, ostensibly to make a donation to one of her charities.

Presently rising, she closed the shutters, and switching on the electric light, opened the safe in the wall where her jewels were kept—mostly royal heirlooms that were worth nearly a million sterling.

Case after case she drew out and opened. Her two magnificent tiaras, her emerald and diamond necklet, the great emerald pendant, once the property of Catherine di Medici, six wonderful collars of perfect pearls and some other miscellaneous jewels, all of them magnificent, she replaced in the safe, as they were heirlooms of the Kingdom. Those royal tiaras as Crown Princess she placed in their cases and put them away with a sigh, for she knew she was renouncing her crown for ever. Her own jewels, quite equal in magnificence, she took from their cases and placed together upon the bed. There was her magnificent long rope of pearls, that when worn twice twisted around her neck hung to below the knees, and was declared to be one of the finest in the world; her two diamond collars, her wonderful diamond bodice ornaments, her many pairs of earrings, antique brooches, and other jewels—she took them all from their cases until they lay together, a brilliant, scintillating heap, the magnificent gems flashing with a thousand fires.

At last she drew forth a leather case about six inches square, and opening it, gazed upon it in hesitancy. Within was a large true-lover’s knot in splendid diamonds, and attached to it was the black ribbon and the jewelled cross—her decoration as Dame de la Croix Etoilée of Austria, the order bestowed upon the Imperial Archduchesses.

She looked at it wistfully. Sight of it brought to her mind the fact that in renouncing her position she must also renounce that mark of her Imperial birth. Yet she was determined, and with trembling fingers detached the ribbon and cross from the diamond ornament, threw the latter on to the heap upon the bed, and replaced the former with the jewels she intended to leave behind.

The beautiful cross had been bestowed upon her by her uncle the Emperor upon her marriage, and would now be sent back to him.

She took two large silk handkerchiefs from a drawer, and made two bundles of the precious gems. Then she hid them away until the morrow, and reclosing the safe, locked it; and taking the key off the bunch, placed it in the drawer of her little escritoire.

Thus she had taken the first step towards her emancipation.

Her eye caught the Madonna, with its silver lamp, and she halted before it, her head bowed, her lips moving in silent prayer as she sought help, protection, and guidance in the act of renunciation she was about to commit.

Then, after ten minutes or so, she again moved slowly across the room, opening the great inlaid wardrobe where hung a few of her many dresses. She looked upon them in silence. All must be left behind, she decided. She could only take what she could carry in her hand. She would leave her personal belongings to be divided up by that crowd of human wolves who hungered to destroy her. The Trauttenberg might have them as her perquisites—in payment for her treachery.

By that hour to-morrow she would have left Treysa for ever. She would begin a new life—a life of simplicity and of freedom, with her darling child.

Presently she slept again, but it was a restless, fevered sleep. Constantly she wondered whether it would be possible for her to pass those palace guards with little Ignatia. If they recognised the child they might stop her, for only Allen herself was permitted to take her outside the palace.

Yet she must risk it; her only means of escape was that upon which she had decided.

Next day passed very slowly. The hours dragged by as she tried to occupy herself in her boudoir, first with playing with the child, and afterwards attending to her correspondence. She wrote no letter of farewell, as she deemed it wiser to take her leave without a word. Yet even in those last hours of her dignity as Crown Princess her thoughts were with the many charitable institutions of which she was patroness, and of how best she could benefit them by writing orders to the royal treasurer to give them handsome donations in her name.

She saw nothing of her husband. For aught she knew, those three grave-faced doctors might have already consulted with Veltman; they might have already declared her insane.

The afternoon passed, and alone she took her tea in English fashion, little Ignatia being brought to her for half an hour, as was the rule when she was without visitors. She had already been to Henriette’s room in secret, and had secured a black-stuff dress and packet, a long black travelling-coat and a felt canotte, all of which she had taken to her own room and hidden in her wardrobe.

When Allen took the child’s hand in order to lead her out, her mother glanced anxiously at the clock, and saw that it was half-past five.

“You can leave Ignatia here while you go to dinner,” she said in English; “she will be company for me. Tell the servants that I am not to be disturbed, even by the Countess de Trauttenberg.”

“Very well, your Highness,” was the Englishwoman’s answer, as bowing she left the room.

For another quarter of an hour she laughed and played with the child, then said,—

“Come, darling, let us go along to my room.” And taking her tiny hand, led her gently along the corridor to her own chamber. Once within she locked the door, and quickly throwing off her own things, assumed those of the maid which she took from the wardrobe. Then upon Ignatia she put a cheap dark coat of grey material and a dark-blue woollen cap which at once concealed the child’s golden curls. This concluded, she assumed a thick black lace veil, which well concealed her features, and around her throat she twisted a silken scarf. The collar of her coat, turned up, hid the colour of her hair, and her appearance was in a few moments well transformed. Indeed, she presented the exact prototype of her maid Henriette.

The jewels were in a cheap leather hand-bag, also the maid’s property. This she placed in her dressing-bag, and with it in her hand she took up little Ignatia, saying,—

“Hush, darling! don’t speak a word. You’ll promise mother, won’t you?”

The child, surprised at all this preparation, gave her promise, but still remained inquisitive.

Then the Crown Princess Claire gave a final glance around the room, the scene of so much of her bitter domestic unhappiness. Sighing heavily, she crossed herself before the Madonna, uttered a few low words in prayer, and unlocking the door stole out into the long, empty corridor.

Those were exciting moments—the most exciting in all her life.

With her heart beating quickly she sped onward to the head of the great marble gilt staircase. Along one of the side corridors a royal valet was approaching, and the man nodded to her familiarly, believing her to be Henriette.

At the head of the staircase she looked down, but saw nobody. It was the hour when all the servants were at their evening meal. Therefore, descending quickly, she passed through the great winter garden, a beautiful place where, among the palms and flowers, were cunningly placed tiny electric lamps. Across a large courtyard she went—as it was a short cut from that wing of the palace in which her apartments were situated—and at last she reached the main entrance, where stood the head concierge in his cocked hat and scarlet livery, and where idled an agent of police in plain clothes, reading the evening paper.

At her approach they both glanced at her.

She held her breath. What if they stopped her on account of the child?

But summoning all her courage she went forward, compelled to pass them quite closely.

Then as she advanced she nodded familiarly to the gold-laced janitor, who to her relief wished her good-evening, and she passed out into the park.

She had successfully passed through one peril, but there was yet a second—those carefully-guarded gilded gates which gave entrance to the royal demesne. Day and night they were watched by palace servants and the agents of police entrusted with his Majesty’s personal safety.

She sped on down the broad gravelled drive, scarce daring to breathe, and on arrival at the gatehouse passed in it, compelled to make her exit through the small iron turnstile where sat two men, the faithful white-bearded old gatekeeper, who had been fifty years in the royal service, and a dark-faced brigadier of police. Recognition would mean her incarceration in an asylum as insane.

Both men looked up as she entered. It was the supreme moment of her peril. She saw that the detective was puzzled by her veil. But she boldly passed by them, saying in French, in a voice in imitation of Henriette’s,—

“Bon soir, messieurs!”

The old gatekeeper, in his low, gruff German, wished her good-night unsuspiciously, drew the lever which released the turnstile, and next moment the Crown Princess Claire stepped out into the world beyond—a free woman.

Chapter Eleven.

Doom or Destiny.

With quickened footsteps she clasped the child to her, and hurrying on in the falling gloom, skirted the long, high walls of the royal park, where at equal distances stood the sentries.

More than one, believing her to be Mademoiselle, saluted her.

She was free, it is true; but she had yet to face many perils, the greatest of them all being that of recognition by the police at the station, or by any of the people, to whom her countenance was so well-known.

Presently she gained the broad Klosterstrasse, where the big electric lamps were already shining; and finding a fiacre at the stand, entered it and drove to a small outfitter’s shop, where she purchased two travelling-rugs and a shawl for little Ignatia. Thence she went to a pastrycook’s and bought some cakes, and then drove up the wide Wolbeckerstrasse to the central railway station.

The streets were alive with life, for most of the shops were closed, the main thoroughfares were illuminated, and all Treysa was out at the cafés or restaurants, or promenading the streets, for the day was a national festival. The national colours were displayed everywhere, and the band of the 116th Regiment was playing a selection from “La Bohème” as she crossed the great Domplatz.

Hers was indeed a strange position.

Unknown and unrecognised, she drove in the open cab, with the tiny, wondering Princess at her side, through the great crowds of holiday-makers—those people who had they known of her unhappiness would in all probability have risen in a body and revolted.

She remembered that she had been “their Claire,” yet after that night she would be theirs no longer. It was a sad and silent leave-taking. She had renounced her crown and imperial privileges for ever.

Many men and women stared at her as she passed under the bright electric street lamps, and once or twice she half feared that they might have penetrated her disguise. Yet no cheer was raised; none rushed forward to kiss her hand.

She gave the cabman orders to drive up and down several of the principal thoroughfares, for there was still plenty of time for the train; and, reluctant to take leave of the people of Treysa whom she loved so well, and who were her only friends, she gazed upon them from behind her veil and sighed.

At the busy, echoing station she arrived ten minutes before the express was due, and took her tickets; but when she went to the wagon-lit office, the official, not recognising her, sharply replied that the places had all been taken by an American tourist party. Therefore she was compelled to enter an ordinary first-class compartment. The train was crowded, and all the corner seats were taken. Fearing to call a porter to her assistance lest she should be recognised—when the royal saloon would at once be attached to the train for her—she was compelled to elbow her way through the crowd and take an uncomfortable seat in the centre of a compartment, where all through the night she tried to sleep, but in vain.

Little Ignatia soon closed her eyes and was asleep, but Claire, full of regrets at being compelled to renounce husband, crown, everything, as she had done, and in wonder of what the future had in store for her, sat silent, nursing her child through the long night hours. Her fellow-travellers, two fat Germans of Jewish cast, and three women, slept heavily, the men snoring.

The grey dawn showed at last over the low green hills. Had her absence been discovered? Most certainly it had, but they had now passed the confines of the kingdom, and she was certain that the people at the palace would not telegraph news of her disappearance for fear of creating undue scandal.

At last she had frustrated their dastardly plot to incarcerate her in an asylum. She sat there, a figure of sweet loveliness combined with exceeding delicacy and even fragility—one of the most refined elegance and the most exquisite modesty.

At a small wayside station where they stopped about seven o’clock she bought a glass of coffee, and then they continued until the Austrian frontier at Voitersreuth was reached; and at Eger, a few miles farther on, she was compelled to descend and change carriages, for only the wagon-lit went through to the capital.

It was then eleven o’clock in the morning, and feeling hungry, she took little Ignatia into the buffet and had some luncheon, the child delighted at the novel experience of travelling.

“We are going to see grandfather,” her mother told her. “You went to see him when you were such a wee, wee thing, so you don’t remember him.”

“No,” declared the child with wide-open, wondering eyes; “I don’t remember. Will Allen be there?”

“No, darling, I don’t think so,” was the evasive reply to a question which struck deep into the heart of the woman fleeing from her persecutors.

While Ignatia had her milk, her mother ate her cutlet at the long table among the other hasty travellers, gobbling up their meal and shouting orders to waiters with their mouths full.

Hitherto, when she passed there in the royal saloon, the railway officials had come forward, cap in hand, to salute her as an Imperial Archduchess of Austria; but now, unknown and unrecognised, she passed as an ordinary traveller. Presently, when the Vienna express drew up to the platform, she fortunately found an empty first-class compartment, and continued her journey alone, taking off her hat and settling herself for the remaining nine hours between there and the capital. Little Ignatia was still very sleepy, therefore she made a cushion for her with her cape and laid her full length, while she herself sat in a corner watching the picturesque landscape, and thinking—thinking deeply over all the grim tragedy of the past.

After travelling for three hours, the train stopped at a small station called Protovin, the junction of the line from Prague, whence a train had arrived in connection with the express. Here there seemed quite a number of people waiting upon the platform.

She was looking out carelessly upon them when from among the crowd a man’s eyes met hers. He stared open-mouthed, turned pale, and next instant was at the door. She drew back, but, alas! it was too late. She was without hat or veil, and he had recognised her.

She gave vent to a low cry, half of surprise, half of despair.

Next second the door opened, and the man stood before her, hat in hand.

“Princess!” he gasped in a low, excited voice. “What does this mean? You—alone—going to Vienna?”

“Carl!” she cried, “why are you here? Where have you come from?”

“I have been to my estate up at Rakonitz, before going to Rome,” was his answer. “Is it Destiny that again brings us together like this?”

And entering the carriage, he bent and kissed her hand.

Was it Destiny, or was it Doom?

“You with Ignatia, and no lady-in-waiting? What does this mean?” he inquired, utterly puzzled.

The porter behind him placed his bag in the carriage, while he, in his travelling-ulster and cap, begged permission to remain there.

What could she say? She was very lonely, and she wanted to tell him what had occurred since her return to Treysa and of the crisis of it all. So she nodded in the affirmative.

Then he gave the porter his tip, and the man departed. Presently, before the train moved off, the sleeping child opened her eyes, shyly at first, in the presence of a stranger; but a moment later, recognising him, she got up, and rushing gladly towards him, cried in her pretty, childish way,—

“Leitolf! Good Leitolf to come with us! We are so very tired!”

“Are you, little Highness?” exclaimed the man laughing, and taking her upon his knee. “But you will soon be at your destination.”

“Yes,” she pouted, “but I would not mind if mother did not cry so much.”

The Princess pressed her lips together. She was a little annoyed that her child should reveal the secret of her grief. If she did so to Leitolf she might do so to others.

After a little while, however, the motion of the train lulled the child off to sleep again, and the man laid her down as before. Then, turning to the sorrowing woman at his side, he asked,—

“You had my message—I mean you found it?”

She nodded, but made no reply. She recollected each of those finely-penned words, and knew that they came from the heart of as honest and upright a man as there was in the whole empire.

“And now tell me, Princess, the reason of this second journey to Vienna?” he asked, looking at her with his calm, serious face.

For a moment she held her breath. There were tears welling in her eyes, and she feared lest he might detect them—feared that she might break down in explaining to him the bitter truth.

“I have left Treysa for ever,” she said simply.

He started from his seat and stared at her.

“Left Treysa!” he gasped. “Left the Court—left your husband! Is this really true?”

“It is the truth, Carl,” was her answer in a low, tremulous tone. “I could bear it no longer.”

He was silent. He recognised the extreme gravity of the step she had taken. He recognised, too, that, more serious than all, her unscrupulous enemies who had conspired to drive her from Court had now triumphed.

His brows were knit as he realised all that she was suffering—this pure, beautiful woman, whom he had once loved so fondly, and whose champion he still remained. He knew that the Crown Prince was a man of brutal instinct, and utterly unsuited as husband of a sweet, refined, gentle woman such as Claire. It was, indeed, a tragedy—a dark tragedy.

In a low voice he inquired what had occurred, but she made no mention of the brutal, cowardly blow which had felled her insensible, cut her lip, and broken her white teeth. She only explained very briefly the incident of the three guests at dinner, and the amazing conversation she had afterwards overheard.

“It is a dastardly plot!” he cried in quick anger. “Why, you are as sane as I am, and yet the Crown Prince, in order to get rid of you, will allow these doctors to certify you as a lunatic! The conspiracy shall be exposed in the press. I will myself expose it!” he declared, clenching his fists.

“No, Carl,” she exclaimed quickly. “I have never done anything against my husband’s interest, nor have I ever made complaint against him. I shall not do so now. Remember, what I have just told you is in strict confidence. The public must not know of it.”

“Then will you actually remain a victim and keep silence, allowing these people to thus misjudge you?” he asked in a tone of reproach.

“To bring opprobrium upon my husband is to bring scandal upon the Court and nation,” was her answer. “I am still Crown Princess, and I have still my duty to perform towards the people.”

“You are a woman of such high ideals, Princess,” he said, accepting her reproof. “Most other wives who have been treated as you have would have sought to retaliate.”

“Why should I? My husband is but the weak-principled puppet of a scandalous Court. It is not his own fault. He is goaded on by those who fear that I may reign as Queen.”

“Few women would regard him in such a very generous light,” Leitolf remarked, still stunned by the latest plot which she had revealed. If there was an ingenious conspiracy to confine her in an asylum, then surely it would be an easy matter for the very fact of her flight to be misconstrued into insanity. They would tear her child from her, and imprison her, despairing and brokenhearted. The thought of it goaded him to desperation. She told him of her intention of returning to her father, the Archduke Charles, and of living in future in her old home at Wartenstein—that magnificent castle of which they both had such pleasant recollections.

“And I shall be in Rome,” he sighed. “Ah, Princess, I shall often think of you, often and often.”

“Never write to me, I beg of you, Carl,” she said apprehensively. “Your letter might fall into other hands, and certainly would be misunderstood. The world at large does not believe in platonic friendship between man and woman, remember.”

“True,” he murmured. “That is why they say that you and I are still lovers, which is a foul and abominable lie.” Their eyes met, and she saw a deep, earnest look in his face that told her that he was thinking still of those days long ago, and of that giddy intoxication of heart and sense which belongs to the novelty of passion which we feel once, and but once, in our lives.

At that moment the train came to a standstill at the little station of Gratzen, and, unnoticed by them, a man passed the carriage and peered in inquisitively. He was a thick-set, grey-bearded, hard-faced German, somewhat round-shouldered, rather badly dressed, who, leaning heavily upon his stick, walked with the air of an invalid.

He afterwards turned quickly upon his heel and again limped past, gazing in, so as to satisfy himself that he was not mistaken.

Then entering a compartment at the rear of the train the old fellow resumed his journey, smiling to himself, and stroking his beard with his thin, bony hand, as though he had made a very valuable discovery and yet was puzzled.

Chapter Twelve.

“An Open Scandal!”

At Klosterneuberg, six miles from Vienna, Leitolf kissed her hand in deep reverence, taking sad leave of her, for on arrival at the capital she would probably be recognised, and they both deemed it judicious that she should be alone.

“Good-bye,” he said earnestly, holding her hand as the train ran into the suburban station. “This meeting of ours has been a strange and unexpected one, and this is, I suppose, our last leave-taking. I have nothing to add,” he sighed. “You know that I am ever your servant, ever ready to serve your Imperial Highness in whatsoever manner you may command. May God bless and comfort you. Adieu.”

“Good-bye, Carl,” she said brokenly. It was all she could say. She restrained her tears by dint of great effort.

Then, when he had gone and closed the carriage door, she burst into a fit of sobbing. By his absence it seemed to her that the light of her life had been extinguished. She was alone, in hopeless despair.

Darkness had now fallen, and as the train rushed on its final run along the precipitous slopes of the Kahlenberg, little Ignatia placed her arms around her mother’s neck and said,—

“Mother, don’t cry, or I shall tell Allen, and she’ll scold you. Poor, dear mother!”

The Princess kissed the child’s soft arms, and at length managed to dry her own eyes, assuming her hat and veil in preparation for arrival at the capital. And none too soon, for ere she had dressed Ignatia and assumed her own disguise the train slowed down and stopped, while the door was thrown open and a porter stood ready to take her wraps.

She took Ignatia in her arms and descended in the great station, bright beneath its electric lamps, and full of bustle and movement. She saw nothing more of Leitolf, who had disappeared into the crowd. He had wished her farewell for ever.

A fiacre conveyed her to her father’s magnificent palace in the Parkring, where on arrival the gorgeous concierge, mistaking her for a domestic, treated her with scant courtesy.

“His Imperial Highness the Archduke is not in Vienna,” was his answer. “What’s your business with him, pray?”

The Princess, laughing, raised her veil, whereupon the gruff old fellow, a highly-trusted servant, stammered deep apologies, took off his hat, and bent to kiss the hand of the daughter of the Imperial house.

“My father is away, Franz? Where is he?”

“At Wartenstein, your Imperial Highness. He left yesterday,” and he rang the electric bell to summon the major-domo.

She resolved to remain the night, and then resume her journey to the castle. Therefore, with little Ignatia still in her arms, she ascended the grand staircase, preceded by the pompous servitor, until she reached the small green-and-gilt salon which she always used when she came there.

Two maids were quickly in attendance, electric lights were switched on everywhere, and the bustle of servants commenced as soon as the news spread that the Archduchess Claire had returned.

Several of the officials of the Archducal Court came to salute her, and the housekeeper came to her to receive orders, which, being simple, were quickly given.

She retired to her room with little Ignatia, and after putting the child to bed, removed the dust of travel and went to one of the smaller dining-rooms, where two men in the Imperial livery served her dinner in stiff silence.

Her father being absent, many of the rooms were closed, the furniture swathed in holland, and the quiet of the great, gorgeous place was to her distinctly depressing. She was anxious to know how her father would take her flight—whether he would approve of it or blame her.

She sent distinct orders to Franz that no notice was to be given to the journals of her unexpected return, remarking at the same time that he need not send to the station, as she had arrived without baggage. If it were known in Vienna that she had returned, the news would quickly be telegraphed back to Treysa. Besides, when the fact of her presence in the Austrian capital was known, she would, as Crown Princess, be compelled by Court etiquette to go at once and salute her uncle the Emperor. This she had no desire to do just at present. His hard, unjust words at her last interview with him still rankled in her memory.

His Majesty was not her friend. That had recently been made entirely plain.

So, after dining, she chatted for a short time with De Bothmer, her father’s private secretary, who came to pay his respects to her, and then retired to her own room—the room with the old ivory crucifix where the oil-light burnt dimly in its red glass.

She crossed herself before it, and her lips moved in silent prayer.

A maid came to her and reported that little Ignatia was sleeping soundly, but that was not sufficient. She went herself along the corridor to the child’s room and saw that she was comfortable, giving certain instructions with maternal anxiety.

Then she returned to her room accompanied by the woman, who, inquisitive regarding her young mistress’s return, began to chat to her while she brushed and plaited her hair, telling her all the latest gossip of the palace.

The Archduke, her father, had, it appeared, gone to Wartenstein for a fortnight, and had arranged to go afterwards to Vichy for the cure, and thence to Paris; therefore, next morning, taking the maid with her to look after little Ignatia, she left Vienna again for the Tyrol, travelling by Linz and Salsburg to Rosenheim, and then changing on to the Innsbruck line and alighting, about six o’clock in the evening, at the little station of Rattenberg. There she took a hired carriage along the post road into the beautiful Zillerthal Alps, where, high up in a commanding position ten miles away, her old home was situated—one of the finest and best-preserved mediaeval castles in Europe.

It was already dark, and rain was falling as the four horses, with their jingling bells, toiled up the steep, winding road, the driver cracking his whip, proud to have the honour of driving her Imperial Highness, who until four years ago had spent the greater part of her life there. Little Ignatia, tired out by so much travelling, slept upon her mother’s knee, and the Crown Princess herself dozed for a time, waking to find that they were still toiling up through the little village of Fügen, which was her own property.

Presently, three miles farther on, she looked out of the carriage window, and there, high up in the darkness, she saw the lighted windows of the great, grim stronghold which, nearly a thousand years ago, had been the fortress of the ancient Kings of Carinthia, those warlike ancestors of hers whose valiant deeds are still recorded in song and story.

Half an hour later the horses clattered into the great courtyard of the castle, and the old castellan came forth in utter amazement to bow before her.

Electric bells were rung, servants came forward quickly, the Archduke’s chamberlain appeared in surprise, and the news spread in an instant through the servants’ quarters that the Archduchess Claire—whom the whole household worshipped—had returned and had brought with her the tiny Princess Ignatia.

Everywhere men and women bowed low before her as, preceded by the black-coated chamberlain, she went through those great, old vaulted halls she knew so well, and up the old stone winding stairs to the room which was still reserved for her, and which had not been disturbed since she had left it to marry.

On entering she glanced around, and sighed in relief. At last she was back at home again in dear old Wartenstein. Her dream of liberty was actually realised!

Little Ignatia and the nurse were given an adjoining room which she had used as a dressing-room, and as she stood there alone every object in the apartment brought back to her sweet memories of her girlhood, with all its peaceful hours of bliss, happiness, and high ideals.

It was not a large room, but extremely cosy. The windows in the ponderous walls allowed deep alcoves, where she loved to sit and read on summer evenings, and upon one wall was the wonderful old fourteenth-century tapestry representing a tournament, which had been a scene always before her ever since she could remember. The bed, too, was gilded, quaint and old-fashioned, with hangings of rich crimson silk brocade of three centuries ago. Indeed, the only modern innovations there were the big toilet-table with its ancient silver bowl and ewer, and the two electric lights suspended above.