William Le Queux (continued 3)

Old Adelheid, her maid when she was a girl, came quickly to her, and almost shed tears of joy at her young mistress’s return. Adelheid, a stout, round-faced, grey-haired woman, had nursed her as a child, and it was she who had served her until the day when she had left Vienna for Treysa after her unfortunate marriage.

“My sweet Princess!” cried the old serving-woman as she entered, and, bending, kissed her hand, “only this moment I heard that you had come back to us. This is really a most delightful surprise. I heard that you were in Vienna the other day, and wondered whether you would come to see us all at old Wartenstein—or whether at your Court so far away you had forgotten us all.”

“Forgotten you, Adelheid!” she exclaimed quickly, pushing her fair hair from her brow, for her head ached after her fatiguing journey; “why, I am always thinking of the dear old place, and of you—who used to scold me so.”

“When you deserved it, my Princess,” laughed the pleasant old woman. “Ah!” she added, “those were happy times, weren’t they? But you were often really incorrigible, you know, especially when you used to go down into the valley and meet young Carl Leitolf in secret. You remember—eh? And how I found you out?”

Claire held her breath for a moment at mention of that name.

“Yes, Adelheid,” she said in a somewhat changed tone. “And you were very good. You never betrayed our secret.”

“No. Because I believed that you both loved each other—that boy-and-girl love which is so very sweet while it lasts, but is no more durable than the thistledown. But let us talk of the present now. I’ll go and order dinner for you, and see that you have everything comfortable. I hope you will stay with us a long, long time. This is your first return since your marriage, remember.”

“Where is my father?” her Highness asked, taking off her hat, and rearranging her hair before the mirror.

“In the green salon. He was with the secretary, Wernhardt, but I passed the latter going out as I came up the stairs. The Archduke is therefore alone.”

“Then I will go and see him before I dine,” she said; so, summoning all her courage, she gave a final touch to her hair and went out, and down the winding stairs, afterwards making her way to the opposite side of the ponderous stronghold, where her father’s study—called the green salon on account of the old green silk hangings and upholstery—was situated.

She halted at the door, but for an instant only; then, pale-faced and determined, she entered the fine room with the groined roof, where, at a table at the farther end, her father, in plain evening dress, was writing beneath a shaded lamp.

He raised his bald head and glanced round to see who was the intruder who entered there without knocking. Then, recognising his daughter, he turned slowly in his writing-chair, his brows knit, exclaiming coldly the single inquiry,—

“Well?”

His displeasure at her appearance was apparent. He did not even welcome her, or inquire the reason of her return. The expression upon his thin, grey face showed her that he was annoyed.

She rushed across to kiss him, but he put out his hand coldly, and held her at arm’s length.

“There is time for that later, Claire,” he said in a hard voice. “I understand that you have left Treysa?”

“Yes, I have. Who told you?”

“The Crown Prince, your husband, has informed me by telegraph of your scandalous action.”

“Scandalous action!” she cried quickly, while in self-defence she began to implore the sympathy of the hard-hearted old Archduke, a man of iron will and a bigot as regarded religion. In a few quick sentences, as she stood before him in the centre of the room, she told him of all she had suffered; of her tragic life in her gilded prison at Treysa; of the insults heaped upon her by the King and Queen; of her husband’s ill-treatment; and finally, of the ingenious plot to certify her as demented.

“And I have come to you, father, for protection for myself and my child,” she added earnestly. “If I remain longer at Treysa my enemies will drive me really insane. I have tried to do my duty, God knows, but those who seek my downfall are, alas! too strong. I am a woman, alone and helpless. Surely you, my own father, will not refuse to assist your daughter, who is the victim of a foul and dastardly plot?” she cried in tears, advancing towards him. “I have come back to live here with my child in seclusion and in peace—to obtain the freedom for which I have longed ever since I entered that scandalous and unscrupulous Court of Treysa. I implore of you, father, for my dear, dead mother’s sake, to have pity upon me, to at least stand by me as my one friend in all the world—you—my own father!”

He remained perfectly unmoved. His thin, bloodless face only relaxed into a dubious smile, and he responded in a hard voice,—

“You have another friend, Claire,” Then he rose from his chair, his eyes suddenly aflame with anger as he asked, “Why do you come here with such lies as these upon your lips? To ask my assistance is utterly useless. I have done with you. It is too late to-night for you to leave Wartenstein, but recollect that you go from here before ten o’clock to-morrow morning, and that during my lifetime you never enter again beneath this roof!”

“But, father—why?” she gasped, staring at him amazed.

“Why? Why, because the whole world is scandalised by your conduct! Every one knows that the reason of your unhappiness with the Crown Prince is because you have a lover—that low-bred fellow Leitolf—a man of the people,” he sneered. “Your conduct at Treysa was an open scandal, and in Vienna you actually visited him at his hotel. The Emperor called me, and told me so. He is highly indignant that you should bring such an outrageous scandal upon our house, and—”

“Father, I deny that Count Leitolf is my lover!” she cried, interrupting him. “Even you, my own father, defame me,” she added bitterly.

“Defame you!” he sneered. “Bah! you cannot deceive me when you have actually eloped from Treysa with the fellow. See,” he cried, taking a telegram from the table and holding it before her, “do you deny what is here reported—that you and he travelled together, and that he descended from the train just before reaching Vienna, in fear of recognition. No,” he went on, while she stood before him utterly stunned and rendered speechless by his words, which, alas! showed the terrible misconstruction placed upon their injudicious companionship upon the journey. “No, you cannot deny it! You will leave Wartenstein to-morrow, for you have grown tired of your husband; you have invented the story of the plot to declare you insane; and you have renounced your crown and position in order to elope with Leitolf! From to-night I no longer regard you as my daughter. Go!” and he pointed imperiously to the door. “Go back to the people—the common herd of whom you are so very fond—go back to your miserable lover if you wish. To me your future is quite immaterial, and understand perfectly that I forbid you ever to return beneath my roof. You have scandalised the whole of Europe, and you and your lover may now act just as you may think proper.”

“But, father!” she protested, heart-broken, bursting into bitter tears. “Leitolf is not my lover! I swear to you it is all untrue!”

“Go!” he shouted, his face red with anger. “I have said all I need say. Go! Leave me. I will never see you again—never—never!”

Chapter Thirteen.

The Man with the Red Cravat.

A secret service agent—one of the spies of the crafty old Minister Hinckeldeym—had followed Claire from Treysa. Her accidental meeting with Leitolf had, he declared, been prearranged.

It was now said that she, a Crown Princess of the Imperial blood, had eloped with her lover! The Court scandal was complete.

Alone in her room that night she sat for hours sobbing, while the great castle was silent. She was now both homeless and friendless. All the desperate appeals she had made to her father had been entirely unavailing. He was a hard man always. She had, he declared, brought a shameful scandal upon this Imperial house, and he would have nothing further to do with her. Time after time she stoutly denied the false and abominable charge, trying to explain the dastardly plot against her, and the combination of circumstances which led to her meeting with the Count at Protovin. But he would hear no explanation. Leitolf was her lover, he declared, and all her excuses were utterly useless. He refused her his protection, and cast her out as no child of his.

After long hours of tears and ceaseless sobbing, a strange thought crossed her mind. True, she was unjustly condemned as having eloped with Carl; yet, after all, was not even that preferable to the fate to which her husband had conspired to relegate her? The whole of Europe would say that she left the Court in company with a lover, and she bit her lip when she thought of the cruel libel. Yet, supposing that they had no ground for this gossip, was it not more than likely that her enemies would seek to follow her and confine her in an asylum?

The strange combination of circumstances had, however, given them good ground for declaring that she had eloped, and if such report got abroad, as it apparently had done, then her husband would be compelled to sue for a divorce.

She held her breath. Her fingers clenched themselves into her palms at thought of it—a divorce on account of the man who had always, from her girlhood, been her true, loyal, and platonic friend! And if it was sought to prove what was untrue? Should she defend herself, and establish her innocence? Or would she, by refusing to make defence, obtain the freedom from Court which she sought?

She had been utterly dumbfounded by her father’s allegations that she had eloped. Until he had denounced her she had never for one moment seen the grave peril in which his presence at Protovin had placed her. He had compromised her quite unintentionally. Her own pure nature and open mind had never suspected for one moment that those who wished her ill would declare that she had eloped.

Now, as she sat there in the dead silence, she saw plainly, when too late, how injudicious she had been—how, indeed, she had played into the hands of those who sought her downfall. It was a false step to go to Leitolf at the hotel in Vienna, and a worse action still to ask that he should be recalled from her Court and sent away as attaché to Rome. The very fact that she showed interest in him had, of course, lent colour to the grave scandals that were being everywhere whispered. Now the report that she, an Imperial Archduchess, had eloped with him would set the empires of Austria and Germany agog.

What the future was to be she did not attempt to contemplate. She was plunged in despair, utterly hopeless, broken, and without a friend except Steinbach. Was it destiny that she should be so utterly misjudged? Even her own father had sent her forth as an outcast!

Early next morning, taking little Ignatia and the bag containing her jewels, but leaving the maid behind, she drove from the castle, glancing back at it with heavy heart as the carriage descended into the green, fertile valley, gazing for the last time upon that old home she loved so well. It was her last sight of it. She would never again look upon it, she sadly told herself.

She, an Imperial Archduchess of Austria, Crown Princess of a great German kingdom, a Dame of the Croix Etoilée, a woman who might any day become a reigning queen, had renounced her crown and her position, and was now an outcast! Hers was a curious position—stranger, perhaps, than that in which any woman had before found herself. Many a royalty is to-day unhappy in her domestic life, suffering in silence, yet making a brave show towards the world. She had tried to do the same. She had suffered without complaint for more than three long, dark years—until her husband had not only struck her and disfigured her, but had contemplated ridding himself of her by the foulest and most cowardly means his devilish ingenuity could devise.

As she drove through those clean, prosperous villages which were on her own private property, the people came forth, cheering with enthusiasm and rushing to the carriage to kiss her hand. But she only smiled upon them sadly—not, they said, shaking their heads after she had passed, not the same smile as in the old days, before she married the German Prince and went to far-off Treysa.

The stationmaster at Rattenberg came forward to make his obeisance, and as certain military manoeuvres were in progress and some troops were drawn up before the station, both officers and men drew up and saluted. An old colonel whom she had known well before her marriage came forward, and bowing, offered to see her to her compartment, expressing delight at having met her again.

“Your Imperial Highness will never be forgotten here,” declared the gallant, red-faced old fellow, who wore fierce white moustaches. “The poor are always wondering whether you are ever coming back. And at last your Highness is here! And going—where?”

She hesitated. Truth to tell, she had never thought of her destination.

“I go now to Lucerne, incognito,” she replied, for want of something else to say; and they both walked on to the platform, he carrying Henriette’s cheap little leather bag containing her jewels.

“So this,” he said, “is our little Princess Ignatia, about whom we have heard so much.” And laughingly he touched the shy child’s soft cheek caressingly.

“And who are you?” inquired the child wonderingly, examining his bright uniform from head to foot.

The Princess joined in the Colonel’s laughter. Usually the child was shy, but, strangely enough, always talkative with any one who wore a uniform, even though he might be a private soldier on sentry duty at the palace.

The Colonel was not alone in remarking within himself the plainness and cheapness of her Imperial Highness’s costume. It had been remarked everywhere, but was supposed that she wore that very ordinary costume in order to pass incognito.

The train took her to Innsbruck, and after luncheon at the buffet she continued her journey to Lucerne, arriving there late in the evening, and taking the hotel omnibus of the Schweizerhof. There she gave her name as the Baroness Deitel, and declared that her luggage had been mis-sent—a fact which, of course, aroused some suspicion within the mind of the shrewd clerk in the bureau. Visitors without luggage are never appreciated by hotel-keepers.

Next day, however, she purchased a trunk and a number of necessaries, lingerie for herself and for the little Princess, all of which was sent to the hotel—a fact that quickly re-established confidence.

A good many people were staying in the place as usual, and very quickly, on account of her uncommon beauty and natural grace, people began to inquire who she was. But the reply was that she was Baroness Deitel of Frankfort—that was all. From her funereal black they took her for a young widow, and many of the idle young men in the hotel endeavoured to make her acquaintance. But she spoke to no one. She occupied herself with her child, and if alone in the hall she always read a book or newspaper.

The fact was that she was watching the newspapers eagerly, wondering if they would give currency to the false report of her elopement. But as day after day went by and nothing appeared, she grew more assured, hoping that at least the Court at Treysa had suppressed from the press the foul lie that had spread from mouth to mouth.

One paragraph she read, however, in a Vienna paper was very significant, for it stated that the Crown Prince Ferdinand of Marburg had arrived in Vienna at the invitation of the Emperor, who had driven to the station to meet him, and who had embraced him with marked cordiality.

She read between the lines. The Emperor had called him to Vienna in order to hear his side of the story—in order to condemn her without giving her a chance to explain the truth. The Emperor would no doubt decide whether the fact of her leaving the Court should be announced to the public or not.

Her surmise was not far wrong, for while sitting in the big hall of the hotel after luncheon four days later, she saw in the Daily Mail the following telegram, headed, “A German Court Scandal: Startling Revelations.”

Holding her breath, and knowing that, two young Englishmen, seated together and smoking, were watching her, she read as follows:—

“Reuter’s correspondent at Treysa telegraphs it has just transpired that a very grave and astounding scandal has occurred at Court. According to the rumour—which he gives under all reserve—late one night a week ago the Crown Princess Ferdinand escaped from the palace, and taking with her her child, the little Princess Ignatia, eloped to Austria with Count Charles-Leitolf, an official of the Court. A great sensation has been caused in Court circles in both Germany and Austria. The Crown Princess before her marriage was, it will be remembered, the Archduchess Claire, only daughter of the Archduke Charles of Austria, and notable at the Court of Vienna on account of her extreme beauty. It appears that for some time past at the Court of Treysa there have been rumours regarding the intimate friendship between the Crown Princess and the Count, who was for some time attaché at the Austrian Embassy in London. Matters culminated a short time ago when it became known that the Count had followed the Princess to Vienna, where she had gone to visit her father. She returned to Treysa for a few days, still followed by Leitolf, and then left again under his escort, and has not since been seen.

“In Treysa the sensation caused is enormous. It is the sole topic of conversation. The Crown Princess was greatly beloved by the people, but her elopement has entirely negatived her popularity, as the scandal is considered utterly unpardonable. The Crown Prince has left hurriedly for Vienna in order to confer with the Emperor, who, it is rumoured, has issued an edict withdrawing from the Princess her title, and all her rights as an Imperial Archduchess, and her decorations, as well as forbidding her to use the Imperial arms. The excitement in the city of Treysa is intense, but in the Court circle everything is, of course, denied, the King having forbidden the press to mention or comment upon the matter in any way. Reuter’s correspondent, however, has, from private sources within the palace, been able to substantiate the above report, which, vague though it may be, is no doubt true, and the details of which are already known in all the Courts of Europe. It is thought probable in Treysa that the Crown Prince Ferdinand will at once seek a divorce, for certain of the palace servants, notably the lady-in-waiting, the Countess de Trauttenberg, have come forward and made some amazing statements. A Council of Ministers is convened for to-morrow, at which his Majesty will preside.”

“De Trauttenberg!” exclaimed the Princess bitterly between her teeth. “The spy! I wonder what lies she has invented.”

She saw the two Englishmen with their eyes still upon her, therefore she tried to control her feelings. What she had read was surely sufficient to rouse her blood. She returned to her room. “I am no longer popular with the people!” she thought to herself. “They too believe ill of me! My enemies have, alas! triumphed.” She re-read the telegram with its bold heading—the announcement which had startled Europe two days before—and then with a low sigh replaced the paper upon the table.

This crisis she had foreseen. The Court had given those facts to the press correspondent because they intended to hound her down as an infamous and worthless woman, because they had conspired to drive her out of Treysa; and victory was now theirs.

But none of the tourist crowd in the Schweizerhof ever dreamed that the cheaply-dressed, demure little widow was the notorious woman whom all; the world was at that moment discussing—the royal Ionian who had boldly cast aside a crown.

What she read caused her to bite her lips till they bled. She returned to her room, and sat for an hour plunged in bitter tears. All the world was against her, and she had no single person in whom to confide, or of whom to seek assistance.

That night, acting upon a sudden impulse, she took little Ignatia with her, and left by the mail by way of Bâle for Paris, where she might the better conceal herself and the grief that was slowly consuming her brave young heart.

The journey was long and tedious. There was no wagon-lit, and the child, tired out, grew peevish and restless. Nevertheless, half an hour before noon next day the express ran at last into the Gare de l’Est, and an elderly, good-natured, grave-looking man in black, with a bright red tie, took her dressing-bag and gallantly assisted her to alight. She was unused to travelling with the public, for a royal saloon with bowing servants and attendants had always been at her disposal; therefore, when the courteous old fellow held out his hand for her bag, she quite mechanically gave it to him.

Next instant, however, even before she had realised it, the man had disappeared into the crowd of alighting passengers.

The truth flashed upon her in a second.

All her magnificent jewels had been stolen!

Chapter Fourteen.

In Secret.

Realising her loss, the Princess quickly informed one of the station officials, who shouted loudly to the police at the exit barrier that a theft had been committed, and next moment all was confusion.

Half a dozen police agents, as well as some gardes in uniform, appeared as though by magic, and while the exit was closed, preventing the weary travellers who had just arrived from leaving, an inspector of police came up and made sharp inquiry as to her loss.

In a moment a knot of inquisitive travellers gathered around her.

“A man wearing a bright red cravat has taken my dressing-bag, and made off with it. All my jewels are in it!” Claire exclaimed excitedly.

“Pardon, madame,” exclaimed the police official, a shrewd-looking functionary with fair, pointed beard, “what was the dressing-bag like?”

“A crocodile one, covered with a black waterproof cover.”

“And the man wore a red tie?”

“Yes. He was dressed in black, and rather elderly. His red tie attracted me.”

For fully a quarter of an hour the iron gate was kept closed while, accompanied by the inspector and two agents, she went among the crowd trying to recognise the gallant old fellow who had assisted her to alight. But she was unable. Perhaps she was too agitated, for misfortune seemed now to follow upon misfortune. She had at the first moment of setting foot in Paris lost the whole of her splendid jewels!

With the police agents she stood at the barrier when it was reopened, and watched each person pass out; but, alas! she saw neither the man with the red tie nor her dressing-bag.

And yet the man actually passed her unrecognised. He was wearing a neat black tie and a soft black felt hat in place of the grey one he had worn when he had taken the bag from her hand. He had the precious dressing-case, but it was concealed within the serviceable pigskin kit-bag which he carried.

She was looking for the grey hat, the red tie, and her own bag, but, of course, saw none of them.

And so the thief, once outside the station, mounted into a fiacre and drove away entirely unsuspected.

“Madame,” exclaimed the inspector regretfully, when the platform had at last emptied, “I fear you have been the victim of some clever international thief. It is one of the tricks of jewel-thieves to wear a bright-coloured tie by which the person robbed is naturally attracted. Yet in a second, so deft are they, they can change both cravat and hat, and consequently the person robbed fails to recognise them in the excitement of the moment. This is, I fear, what has happened in your case. But if you will accompany me to the office I will take a full description of the missing property.”

She went with him to the police-office on the opposite side of the great station, and there gave, as far as she was able, a description of some of the stolen jewels. She, however, did not know exactly how many ornaments there were, and as for describing them all, she was utterly unable to do so.

“And Madame’s name?” inquired the polite functionary.

She hesitated. If she gave her real name the papers would at once be full of her loss.

“Deitel,” she answered. “Baroness Deitel of Frankfort.”

“And to what hotel is Madame going?”

She reflected a moment. If she went to Ritz’s or the Bristol she would surely be recognised. She had heard that the Terminus, at the Gare St. Lazare, was a large and cosmopolitan place, where tourists stayed, so she would go there.

“To the Terminus,” was her reply.

Then, promising to report to her if any information were forthcoming after the circulation of the description of the thief and of the stolen property, he assisted her in obtaining her trunk, called a fiacre for her, apologised that she should have suffered such loss, and then bowed her away.

She pressed the child close to her, and staring straight before her, held her breath.

Was it not a bad augury for the future? With the exception of a French bank-note for a thousand francs in her purse and a little loose change, she was penniless as well as friendless.

At the hotel she engaged a single room, and remained in to rest after her long, tiring journey. With a mother’s tender care her first thought was for little Ignatia, who had stood wondering at the scene at the station, and who, when her mother afterwards explained that the thief had run away with her bag, declared that he was “a nasty, bad man.”

On gaining her room at the hotel the Princess put her to bed, but she remained very talkative, watching her mother unpack the things she had purchased in Lucerne.

“Go to sleep, darling,” said her mother, bending down and kissing her soft little face. “If you are very good Allen will come and see you soon.”

“Will she? Then I’ll be ever so good,” was the child’s reply; and thus satisfied, she dropped off to sleep.

Having arranged the things in the wardrobe, the Princess stood at the window gazing down upon the traffic in the busy Rue Saint Lazare, and the cafés, crowded at the hour of the absinthe. Men were crying “La Presse” in strident voices below. Paris is Paris always—bright, gay, careless, with endless variety, a phantasmagoria of movement, the very cinematograph of human life. Yet how heavy a heart can be, and how lonely is life, amid that busy throng, only those who have found themselves in the gay city alone can justly know.

Her slim figure in neat black was a tragic one. Her sweet face was blanched and drawn. She leaned her elbows upon the window-ledge, and looking straight before her, reflected deeply.

“Is there any further misfortune to fall upon me, I wonder?” she asked herself. “The loss of my jewels means to me the loss of everything. On the money I could have raised upon them I could have lived in comfort in some quiet place for years, without any application to my own lawyers. Fate, indeed, seems against me,” she sighed. “Because I have lived an honest, upright life, and have spoken frankly of my intention to sweep clean the scandalous Court of Treysa, I am now outcast by both my husband and by my father, homeless, and without money. Many of the people would help me, I know, but it must never be said that a Hapsbourg sought financial aid of a commoner. No, that would be breaking the family tradition; and whatever evil the future may have in store for me I will never do that.”

“I wonder,” she continued after a pause—“I wonder if the thief who took my jewels knew of my present position, my great domestic grief and unhappiness, whether he would not regret? I believe he would. Even a thief is chivalrous to a woman in distress. He evidently thinks me a wealthy foreigner, however, and by to-night all the stones will be knocked from their settings and the gold flung into the melting-pot. With some of them I would not have parted for a hundred times their worth—the small pearl necklace which my poor mother gave me when I was a child, and my husband’s first gift, and the Easter egg in diamonds. Yet I shall never see them again. They are gone for ever. Even the police agent held out but little hope. The man, he said, was no doubt an international thief, and would in an hour be on his way to the Belgian or Italian frontier.”

That was true. Jewel-thieves, and especially the international gangs, are the most difficult to trace. They are past masters of their art, excellent linguists, live expensively, and always pass as gentlemen whose very title and position cause the victim to be unsuspicious. The French and Italian railways are the happy hunting-ground of these wily gentry. The night expresses to the Riviera, Rome, and Florence in winter, and the “Luxe” services from Paris to Arcachon, Vichy, Lausanne, or Trouville in summer, are well watched by them, and frequent hauls are made, one of the favourite tricks being that of making feint to assist a lady to descend and take her bag from her hand.

“I don’t suppose,” she sighed, “that I shall ever see or hear of my ornaments again. Yet I think that if the thief but knew the truth concerning me he would regret. Perhaps he is without means, just as I am. Probably he became a thief of sheer necessity, as I have heard many men have become. Criminal instinct is not always responsible for an evil life. Many persons try to live honestly, but fate is ever contrary. Indeed, is it not so with my own self?”

She turned, and her eyes fell upon the sleeping child. She was all she had now to care for in the whole wide world.

Recollections of her last visit to Paris haunted her—that visit when Carl had so very indiscreetly followed her there, and taken her about incognito in open cabs to see the sights. There had been no harm in it whatsoever, no more harm than if he had been her equerry, yet her enemies had, alas! hurled against her their bitter denunciations, and whispered their lies so glibly that they were believed as truth. Major Scheel, the attaché at the Embassy, had recognised them, and being Leitolf’s enemy, had spread the report. It had been a foolish caprice of hers to take train from Aix-les-Bains to Paris to see her old French nurse Marie, who had been almost as a mother to her. The poor old woman, a pensioned servant of the Archducal family, had, unfortunately, died a month ago, otherwise she would have had a faithful, good friend in Paris. Marie, who knew Count Leitolf well, could have refuted their allegations had she lived; but an attack of pneumonia had proved fatal, and she had been buried with a beautiful wreath bearing the simple words “From Claire” upon her coffin.

As the sunset haze fell over Paris she still sat beside the sleeping child. If her enemies condemned her, then she would not defend herself. God, in whom she placed her fervent trust, should judge her. She had no fear of man’s prejudices or misjudgment. She placed her faith entirely in her Maker. To His will she bowed, for in His sight the pauper and the princess are equal.

That evening she had a little soup sent to her room, and when Ignatia was again sleeping soundly she went forth upon the balcony leading from the corridor, and sitting there, amused herself by looking down upon the life and movement of the great salon below. To leave the hotel was impossible because of Ignatia, and she now began to regret that she had not brought the maid with her from Wartenstein.

Time after time the misfortune of the loss of her jewels recurred to her. It had destroyed her independence, and it had negatived all her plans. Money was necessary, even though she were an Imperial Archduchess. She was incognito, and therefore had no credit.

The gay, after-dinner scene of the hotel was presented below—the flirtations, the heated conversations, and the lazy, studied attitudes of the bloused English girl, who lolls about in cane lounge-chairs after dining, and discusses plays and literature. From her chair on the balcony above she looked down upon that strange, changeful world—the world of tourist Paris. Born and bred at Court as she had been, it was a new sensation to her to have her freedom. The life was entirely fresh to her, and would have been pleasant if there were not behind it all that tragedy of her marriage.

Several days went by, and in order to kill time she took little Ignatia daily in a cab and drove in the Bois and around the boulevards, revisiting all the “sights” which Leitolf had shown her. Each morning she went out driving till the luncheon-hour, and having once lunched with old Marie upstairs at the Brasserie Universelle in the Avenue de l’Opéra, she went there daily.

You probably know the place. Downstairs it is an ordinary brasserie with a few chairs out upon the pavement, but above is a smart restaurant peculiarly Parisian, where the hors d’oeuvres are the finest in Eurorie and the vin gris a speciality. The windows whereat one sits overlook the Avenue, and from eleven o’clock till three it is crowded.

She went there for two reasons—because it was small, and because the life amused her. Little Ignatia would sit at her side, and the pair generally attracted the admiration of every one on account of their remarkably good looks. The habitués began inquiring of the waiters as to who was the beautiful lady in black, but the men only elevated their shoulders and exhibited their palms. “A German,” was all they could answer. “A great lady evidently.”

That she attracted attention everywhere she was quite well aware, yet she was not in the least annoyed. As a royalty she was used to being gazed upon. Only when men smiled at her, as they did sometimes, she met them with a haughty stare. The superiority of her Imperial blood would on such occasions assert itself, much to the confusion of would-be gallants.

Thus passed those spring days with Paris at her gayest and best. The woman who had renounced a crown lived amid all that bright life, lonely, silent, and unrecognised, her one anxiety being for the future of her little one, who was ever asking when Allen would return.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Shy Englishman.

One afternoon about four o’clock, as the Princess, leading little Ignatia, who was daintily dressed in white, was crossing the great hall of the Hotel Terminus on her way out to drive in the Bois, a rather slim, dark-haired man, a little under forty, well-dressed in a blue-serge suit, by which it required no second glance to tell that he was an Englishman, rose shyly from a chair and bowed deeply before her.

At that hour there were only two or three elderly persons in the great hall, all absorbed in newspapers.

She glanced at the stranger quickly and drew back. At first she did not recognise him, but an instant later his features became somehow familiar, although she was puzzled to know where she had met him before.

Where he had bowed to her was at a safe distance from the few other people in the hall; therefore, noticing her hesitation, the man exclaimed in English with a smile,—

“I fear that your Imperial Highness does not recollect me, and I trust that by paying my respects I am not intruding. May I be permitted to introduce myself? My name is Bourne. We met once in Treysa. Do you not recollect?”

In an instant the truth recurred to her, and she stood before him open-mouthed.

“Why, of course!” she exclaimed. “Am I ever likely to forget? And yet I saw so little of your face on that occasion that I failed now to recognise you! I am most delighted to meet you again, Mr Bourne, and to thank you.”

“Thanks are quite unnecessary, Princess,” he declared; whereupon in a low voice she explained that she was there incognito, under the title of the Baroness Deitel, and urged him not to refer to her true station lest some might overhear.

“I know quite well that you are here incognito,” he said. “And this is little Ignatia, is it?” and he patted the child’s cheeks. Then he added, “Do you know I have had a very great difficulty in finding you. I have searched everywhere, and was only successful this morning, when I saw you driving in the Rue Rivoli and followed you here.”

Was this man a secret agent from Treysa, she wondered. In any case, what did he want with her? She treated him with courtesy, but was at the same time suspicious of his motive. At heart she was annoyed that she had been recognised. And yet was she not very deeply indebted to him?

“Well, Mr Bourne,” said the Princess, drawing herself up, and taking the child’s hand again to go out, “I am very pleased to embrace this opportunity of thanking you for the great service you rendered me. You must, however, pardon my failure to recognise you.”

“It was only natural,” the man exclaimed quickly. “It is I who have to apologise, your Highness,” he whispered. “I have sought you because I have something of urgent importance to tell you. I beg of you to grant me an interview somewhere, where we are not seen and where we cannot be overheard.”

She looked at him in surprise. The Englishman’s request was a strange one, yet from his manner she saw that he was in earnest. Why, she wondered, did he fear being seen with her?

“Cannot you speak here?” she inquired.

“Not in this room, among these people. Are there not any smaller salons upstairs? they would be empty at this hour. If I recollect aright, there is a small writing-room at the top of the stairs yonder. I would beg of your Highness to allow me to speak to you there.”

“But what is this secret you have to tell me?” she inquired curiously. “It surely cannot be of such a nature that you may not explain it in an undertone here?”

“I must not be seen with you, Princess,” he exclaimed quickly. “I run great risk in speaking with you here in public. I will explain all if you will only allow me to accompany you to that room.”

She hesitated. So ingenious had been the plots formed against her that she had now grown suspicious of every one. Yet this man was after all a mystery, and mystery always attracted her, as it always attracts both women and men equally.

So with some reluctance she turned upon her heel and ascended the stairs, he following her at a respectful distance.

Their previous meeting had indeed been a strange one.

Fond of horses from her girlhood, she had in Treysa made a point of driving daily in her high English dogcart, sometimes a single cob, and sometimes tandem. She was an excellent whip, one of the best in all Germany, and had even driven her husband’s coach on many occasions. On the summer’s afternoon in question, however, she was driving a cob in one of the main thoroughfares of Treysa, when of a sudden a motor car had darted past, and the animal, taking fright, had rushed away into the line of smart carriages approaching on the opposite side of the road.

She saw her peril, but was helpless. The groom sprang out, but so hurriedly that he fell upon his head, severely injuring himself; while at that moment, when within an ace of disaster, a man in a grey flannel suit sprang out from nowhere and seized the bridle, without, however, at once stopping the horse, which reared, and turning, pinned the stranger against a tree with the end of one of the shafts.

In an instant a dozen men, recognising who was driving, were upon the animal, and held it; but the next moment she saw that the man who had saved her had fallen terribly injured, the shaft having penetrated his chest, and he was lying unconscious.

Descending, she gazed upon the white face, from the mouth of which blood was oozing; and having given directions for his immediate conveyance to the hospital and for report to be made to her as soon as possible, she returned to the palace in a cab, and telephoned herself to the Court surgeon, commanding him to do all in his power to aid the sufferer.

Next day she asked permission of the surgeon that she might see the patient, to thank him and express her sympathy. But over the telephone came back the reply that the patient was not yet fit to see any one, and, moreover, had expressed a desire that nobody should come near him until he had quite recovered.

In the fortnight that went by she inquired after him time after time, but all that she was able to gather was that his name was Guy Bourne, and that he was an English banker’s clerk from London, spending his summer holiday in Treysa. She sent him beautiful flowers from the royal hot-houses, and in reply received his thanks for her anxious inquiries. He told the doctor that he hoped the Princess would not visit him until he had quite recovered. And this wish of his she had of course respected. His gallant action had, without a doubt, saved her from a very serious accident, or she might even have lost her life.

Gradually he recovered from his injuries, which were so severe that for several days his life was despaired of, and then when convalescent a curious thing happened.

He one day got up, and without a word of thanks or farewell to doctors, staff, or to the Crown Princess herself, he went out, and from that moment all trace had been lost of him.

Her Highness, when she heard of this, was amazed. It seemed to her as though for some unexplained reason he had no wish to receive her thanks; or else he was intent on concealing his real identity with some mysterious motive or other.

She had given orders for inquiry to be made as to who the gallant Englishman was; but although the secret agents of the Government had made inquiry in London, their efforts had been futile.

It happened over two years ago. The accident had slipped from her memory, though more than once she had wondered who might be the man who had risked his life to save hers, and had then escaped from Treysa rather than be presented to her.

And now at the moment when she was in sore need of a friend he had suddenly recognised her, and come forward to reveal himself!

Naturally she had not recognised in the dark, rather handsome face of the well-dressed Englishman the white, bloodless countenance of the insensible man with a brass-tipped cart-shaft through his chest. And he wanted to speak to her in secret? What had he, a perfect stranger, to tell her?

The small writing-room at the top of the stairs was fortunately empty, and a moment later he followed her into it, and closed the door.

Little Ignatia looked with big, wondering eyes at the stranger. The Princess seated herself in a chair, and invited the Englishman to take one.

“Princess,” he said in a refined voice, “I desire most humbly to apologise for making myself known to you, but it is unfortunately necessary.”

“Unfortunately?” she echoed. “Why unfortunately, Mr Bourne, when you risked your life for mine? At that moment you only saw a woman in grave peril; you were not aware of my station.”

“That is perfectly true,” he said quietly. “When they told me at the hospital who you were, and when you sent me those lovely flowers and fruit, I was filled with—well, with shame.”

“Why with shame?” she asked. “You surely had no need to be ashamed of your action? On the contrary, the King’s intention was to decorate you on account of your brave action, and had already given orders for a letter to be sent to your own King in London, asking his Majesty to allow you as a British subject to receive and wear the insignia of the Order of the Crown and Sword.”

“And I escaped from Treysa just in time,” he laughed. Then he added, “To tell you the truth, Princess, it is very fortunate that I left before—well, before you could see me, and before his Majesty could confer the decoration.”

“But why?” she asked. “I must confess that your action in escaping as you did entirely mystified me.”

“You were annoyed that I was ungentlemanly enough to run away without thanking your Highness for all your solicitude on my behalf, and for sending the surgeon of the royal household to attend to my injuries. But, believe me, I am most deeply and sincerely grateful. It was not ingratitude which caused me to leave Treysa in secret as I did, but my flight was necessary.”

“Necessary? I don’t understand you.”

“Well, I had a motive in leaving without telling any one.”

“Ah, a private motive!” she said—“something concerning your own private affairs, I suppose?”

He nodded in the affirmative. How could he tell her the truth?

His disinclination to explain the reason puzzled her sorely. That he was a gallant man who had saved a woman without thought of praise or of reward was proved beyond doubt, yet there was something curiously mysterious about him which attracted her. Other men would have at least been proud to receive the thanks and decoration of a reigning sovereign, while he had utterly ignored them. Was he an anarchist?

“Princess,” he said at last, rising from his chair and flushing slightly, “the reason I have sought you to-day is not because of the past, but is on account of the present.”

“The present! why?”

“I—I hardly know what to say, Princess,” he said confusedly. “Two years ago I fled from you because you should not know the truth—because I was in fear. And now Fate brings me again in your path in a manner which condemns me.”

“Mr Bourne, why don’t you speak more plainly? These enigmas I really cannot understand. You saved my life, or at least saved me from a very serious accident, and yet you escaped before I could thank you personally. To-day you have met me, and you tell me that you escaped because you feared to meet me.”

“It is the truth, your Highness. I feared to meet you,” he said, “and, believe me, I should not have sought you to-day were it not of most urgent necessity.”

“But why did you fear to meet me?”

“I did not wish you to discover what I really am,” he said, his face flushing with shame.

“Are you so very timid?” she asked with a light laugh.

But in an instant she grew serious. She saw that she had approached some sore subject, and regretted. The Englishman was a strange person, to say the least, she thought.

“I have nothing to say in self-defence, Princess,” he said very simply. “The trammels of our narrow world are so hypocritical, our laws so farcical and full of incongruities, and our civilisation so fraught with the snortings of Mother Grundy, that I can only tell you the truth and offer no defence. I know from the newspapers of your present perilous position, and of what is said against you. If you will permit me to say so, you have all my sympathy.” And he paused and looked straight into her face, while little Ignatia gazed at him in wonder.

“I wonder if your Highness will forgive me if I tell you the truth?” he went on, as though speaking to himself.

“Forgive you? Why, of course,” she laughed. “What is there to forgive?”

“Very much, Princess,” he said gravely. “I—I’m ashamed to stand here before you and confess; yet I beg of you to forgive me, and to accept my declaration that the fault is not entirely my own.”

“The fault of what?” she inquired, not understanding him.

“I will speak plainly, because I know that your good nature and your self-avowed indebtedness to me—little as that indebtedness is—will not allow you to betray me,” he said in a low, earnest tone. “You will recollect that on your Highness’s arrival at the Gare de l’Est your dressing-bag was stolen, and within it were your jewels—your most precious possession at this critical moment of your life?”

“Yes,” she said in a hard voice of surprise, her brows contracting, for she was not yet satisfied as to the stranger’s bona fides. “My bag was stolen.”

“Princess,” he continued, “let me, in all humility, speak the truth. The reason of my escape from Treysa was because your police held a photograph of me, and I feared that I might be identified. I am a thief—one of an international gang. And—and I pray you to forgive me, and to preserve my secret,” he faltered, his cheeks again colouring. “Your jewels are intact, and in my possession. You can now realise quite plainly why—why I escaped from Treysa!”

She held her breath, staring at him utterly stupefied. This man who had saved her, and so nearly lost his own life in the attempt, was a thief!

Chapter Sixteen.

Light Fingers.

Her Highness was face to face with one of those clever international criminals whose coups were so constantly being reported in the Continental press.

She looked straight into his countenance, a long, intense look, half of reproach, half of surprise, and then, in a firm voice, said,—

“Mr Bourne, I owe you a very great debt. To-day I will endeavour to repay it. Your secret, and the secret of the theft, shall remain mine.”

“And you will give no information to the police?” he exclaimed quickly—“you promise that?”

“I promise,” she said. “I admire you for your frankness. But, tell me—it was not you who took my bag at the station?”

“No. But it was one of us,” he explained. “When the bag containing the jewels was opened I found, very fortunately, several letters addressed to you—letters which you evidently brought with you from Treysa. Then I knew that the jewels were yours, and determined, if I could find you, to restore them to you with our apologies.”

“Why?” she asked. “You surely do not get possession of jewels of that value every day?”

“No, Princess. But the reason is, that although my companions are thieves, they are not entirely devoid of the respect due to a woman. They have read in the newspapers of your domestic unhappiness, and of your flight with the little Princess, and have decided that to rob a defenceless woman, as you are at this moment, is a cowardly act. Though we are thieves, we still have left some vestige of chivalry.”

“And your intention is really to restore them to me?” she remarked, much puzzled at this unexpected turn of fortune.

“Yes, had I not found those letters among them, I quite admit that, by this time, the stones would have been in Amsterdam and re-cut out of all recognition,” he said, rather shamefacedly. Then, taking from his pocket the three letters addressed to her—letters which she had carried away from Treysa with her as souvenirs—he handed them to her, saying,—

“I beg of you to accept these back again. They are better in your Imperial Highness’s hands than my own.”

Her countenance went a trifle pale as she took them, and a sudden serious thought flashed through her mind.

“Your companions have, I presume, read what is contained in these?”

“No, Princess; they have not. I read them, and seeing to whom they were addressed, at once took possession of them. I only showed my companions the addresses.”

She breathed more freely.

“Then, Mr Bourne, I am still more deeply in your debt,” she declared; “you realised that those letters contained a woman’s secret, and you withheld it from the others. How can I sufficiently thank you?”

“By forgiving me,” he said. “Remember, I am a thief, and if you wished you could call the hotel manager and have me arrested.”

“I could hardly treat in that way a man who has acted so nobly and gallantly as you have,” she remarked, with perfect frankness. “If those letters had fallen into other hands they might, have found their way back to the Court, and to the King.”

“I understand perfectly,” he said, in a low voice. “I saw by the dates, and gathered from the tenor in which they were written that they concealed some hidden romance. To expose what was written there would have surely been a most cowardly act—meaner even than stealing a helpless, ill-judged woman’s jewels. No, Princess,” he went on; “I beg that although I stand before you a thief, to whom the inside of a gaol is no new experience, a man who lives by his wits and his agility and ingenuity in committing theft, you will not entirely condemn me. I still, I hope, retain a sense of honour.”

“You speak like a gentleman,” she said. “Who were your parents?”

“My father, Princess, was a landed proprietor in Norfolk. After college I went to Sandhurst, and then entered the British Army; but gambling proved my ruin, and I was dismissed in disgrace for the forgery of a bill in the name of a brother officer. As a consequence, my father left me nothing, as I was a second son; and for years I drifted about England, an actor in a small travelling company; but gradually I fell lower and lower, until one day in London I met a well-known card-sharper, who took me as his partner, and together we lived well in the elegant rooms to which we inveigled men and there cheated them. The inevitable came at last—arrest and imprisonment. I got three years, and after serving it, came abroad and joined Roddy Redmayne’s gang, with whom I am at present connected.”

The career of the man before her was certainly a strangely adventurous one. He had not told her one tithe of the remarkable romance of his life. He had been a gentleman, and though now a jewel thief, he still adhered to the traditions of his family whenever a woman was concerned. He was acute, ingenious beyond degree, and a man of endless resource, yet he scorned to rob a woman who was poor.

The Princess Claire, a quick reader of character, saw in him a man who was a criminal, not by choice, but by force of circumstance. He was now still suffering from that false step he had taken in imitating his brother officer’s signature and raising money upon the bill. However she might view his actions, the truth remained that he had saved her from a terrible accident.

“Yours has been an unfortunate career, Mr Bourne,” she remarked. “Can you not abandon this very perilous profession of yours? Is there no way by which you can leave your companions and lead an honest life?”

When she spoke she made others feel how completely the purely natural and the purely ideal can blend into each other, yet she was a woman breathing thoughtful breath, walking in all her natural loveliness with a heart as frail-strung, as passion-touched, as ever fluttered in a female bosom.

“Ah, Princess!” he cried earnestly, “I beg of you not to reproach me; willingly I would leave it all. I would welcome work and an honest life; but, alas! nowadays it is too late. Besides, who would take me in any position of trust, with my black record behind me? Nobody.” And he shook his head. “In books one reads of reformed thieves, but there are none in real life. A thief, when once a thief, must remain so till the end of his days—of liberty.”

“But is it not a great sacrifice to your companions to give up my jewellery?” she asked in a soft, very kindly voice. “They, of course, recognise its great value?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “Roddy, our chief, is a good judge of stones—as good, probably, as the experts at Spink’s or Streeter’s. One has to be able to tell good stuff from rubbish when one deals in diamonds, as we do. Such a quantity of fake is worn now, and, as you may imagine, we don’t care to risk stealing paste.”

“But how cleverly my bag was taken!” she said. “Who took it? He was an elderly man.”

“Roddy Redmayne,” was Bourne’s reply. “The man who, if your Highness will consent to meet him, will hand it back to you intact.”

“You knew, I suppose, that it contained jewels?”

“We knew that it contained something of value. Roddy was advised of it by telegraph from Lucerne.”

“From Lucerne? Then one of your companions was there?”

“Yes, at your hotel. An attempt was made to get it while you were on the platform awaiting the train for Paris, but you kept too close a watch. Therefore, Roddy received a telegram to meet you upon your arrival in Paris, and he met you.”

What he told her surprised her. She had been quite ignorant of any thief making an attempt to steal the bag at Lucerne, and she now saw how cleverly she had been watched and met.

“And when am I to meet Mr Redmayne?” she asked.

“At any place and hour your Imperial Highness will appoint,” was his reply. “But, of course, I need not add that you will first give your pledge of absolute secrecy—that you will say nothing to the police of the way your jewels have been returned to you.”

“I have already given my promise. Mr Redmayne may rely upon my silence. Where shall we fix the meeting? Here?”

“No, no,” he laughed—“not in the hotel. There is an agent of police always about the hall. Indeed, I run great risk of being recognised, for I fear that the fact of your having reported your loss to the police at the station has set Monsieur Hamard and his friends to watch for us. You see, they unfortunately possess our photographs. No. It must be outside—say at some small, quiet café at ten o’clock to-night, if it will not disturb your Highness too much.”

“Disturb me?” she laughed. “I ought to be only too thankful to you both for restoring my jewels to me.”

“And we, on our part, are heartily ashamed of having stolen them from you. Well, let us say at the Café Vachette, a little place on the left-hand side of the Rue de Seine. You cross the Pont des Arts, and find it immediately; or better, take a cab. Remember, the Vachette, in the Rue de Seine, at ten o’clock. You will find us both sitting at one of the little tables outside, and perhaps your Highness will wear a thick veil, for a pretty woman in that quarter is so quickly noticed.”

She smiled at his final words, but promised to carry out his directions. Surely it was a situation unheard-of—an escaped princess making a rendezvous with two expert thieves in order to receive back her own property.

“Then we shall be there awaiting you,” he said. “And now I fear that I’ve kept you far too long, Princess. Allow me to take my leave.”

She gave him her hand, and thanked him warmly, saying—

“Though your profession is a dishonourable one, Mr Bourne, you have, nevertheless, proved to me that you are at heart still a gentleman.”

“I am gratified that your Imperial Highness should think so,” he replied, and bowing, withdrew, and stepped out of the hotel by the restaurant entrance at the rear. He knew that the agent of police was idling in the hall that led out into the Rue St. Lazare, and he had no desire to run any further risk of detection, especially while that bag with its precious contents remained in the shabby upstairs room in the Rue Lafayette.

Her Highness took little Ignatia and drove in a cab along the Avenue des Champs Elysées, almost unable to realise the amazing truth of what her mysterious rescuer of two years ago had revealed to her. She now saw plainly the reason he had left Treysa in secret. He was wanted by the police, and feared that they would recognise him by the photograph sent from the Prefecture in Paris. And now, on a second occasion, he was serving her against his own interests, and without any thought of reward!

With little Ignatia prattling at her side, she drove along, her mind filled with that strange interview and the curious appointment that she had made for that evening.

Later that day, after dining in the restaurant, she put Ignatia to bed and sat with her till nine o’clock, when, leaving her asleep, she put on a jacket, hat, and thick veil—the one she had worn when she escaped from the palace—and locking the door, went out.

In the Rue St. Lazare she entered a cab and drove across the Pont des Arts, alighting at the corner of the Rue de Seine, that long, straight thoroughfare that leads up to the Arcade of the Luxembourg, and walked along on the left-hand side in search of the Café Vachette.

At that hour the street was almost deserted, for the night was chilly, with a boisterous wind, and the small tables outside the several uninviting cafés and brasseries were mostly deserted. Suddenly, however, as she approached a dingy little place where four tables stood out upon the pavement, two on either side of the doorway, a man’s figure rose, and with hat in hand, came forward to meet her.

She saw that it was Bourne, and with scarcely a word, allowed herself to be conducted to the table where an elderly, grey-haired man had risen to meet her.

“This is Mr Redmayne,” explained Bourne, “if I may be permitted to present him to you.”

The Princess smiled behind her veil, and extended her hand. She recognised him in an instant as the gallant old gentleman in the bright red cravat, who, on pretence of assisting her to alight, had made off with her bag.

She, an Imperial Archduchess, seated herself there between the pair of thieves.

Chapter Seventeen.

In which “The Mute” is Revealed.

When, in order to save appearances, Bourne had ordered her a bock, Roddy Redmayne bent to her, and in a low whisper said,—

“I beg, Princess, that you will first accept my most humble apologies for what I did the other day. As to your Highness’s secrecy, I place myself entirely in your hands.”

“I have already forgiven both Mr Bourne and yourself,” was her quiet answer, lifting her veil and sipping the bock, in order that her hidden face should not puzzle the waiter too much. “Your friend has told me that, finding certain letters in the bag, you discovered that it belonged to me.”

“Exactly, and we were all filled with regret,” said the old thief. “We have heard from the newspapers of your flight from Treysa, owing to your domestic unhappiness, and we decided that it would be a coward’s action to take a woman’s jewels in such circumstances. Therefore we resolved to try and discover you and to hand them back intact.”

“I am very grateful,” was her reply. “But is it not a considerable sacrifice on your part? Had you disposed of them you would surely have obtained a good round sum?”

The man smiled.

“We will not speak of sacrifice, your Highness,” the old fellow said. “If you forgive us and accept back your property, it is all that we ask. I am ashamed, and yet at the same time gratified, that you, an Imperial Princess, should offer me your hand, knowing who and what I am.”

“Whatever you may be, Mr Redmayne,” she said, “you have shown yourself my friend.”

“And I am your friend; I’ll stand your friend, Princess, in whatever service you may command me,” declared the keen-eyed old man, who was acknowledged by the Continental police to be one of the cleverest criminals in the length and breadth of Europe. “We have discovered that you are alone here; but remember that you are not friendless. We are your friends, even though the world would call us by a very ugly name—a gang of thieves.”

“I can only thank you,” she sighed. “You are extremely good to speak like this. It is true that misfortune has fallen upon me, and being friendless, it is reassuring to know that I have at least two persons in Paris ready to perform any service I require. Mr Bourne once rendered me a very great service, but refused to accept any reward.” And she added, laughing, “He has already explained the reason of his hurried departure from Treysa.”

“Our departures are often hurried ones, your Highness,” he said. “Had we not discovered that the jewels were yours, we should in an hour have dispersed, one to England, one to Germany, and one to Amsterdam. But in order to discover you we remained here, and risked being recognised by the police, who know me, and are aware of my profession. To-morrow we leave Paris, for already Hamard’s agents, suspecting me of the theft, are searching everywhere to discover me.”

“But you must not leave before I make you some reward,” she said. “Where are the jewels?”

“In that closed cab. Can you see it away yonder?” and he pointed to the lights of a vehicle standing some distance up the street. “Kinder, one of our friends, has it with him. Shall we get into the cab and drive away? Then I will restore the bag to you, and if I may advise your Highness, I would deposit it in the Crédit Lyonnais to-morrow. It is not safe for a woman alone to carry about such articles of great value. There are certain people in Paris who would not hesitate to take your life for half the sum they represent.”

“Thank you for your advice, Mr Redmayne,” she said. “I will most certainly take it.”

“Will your Highness walk to the cab with me?” Bourne asked, after he had paid the waiter. “You are not afraid to trust yourself with us?” he added.

“Not at all,” she laughed. “Are you not my friends?” And she rose and walked along the street to where the cab was in waiting. Within the vehicle was a man whom he introduced to her as Mr Kinder, and when all four were seated within, Bourne beside her and Redmayne opposite her, the elder man took the precious bag from Kinder’s hand and gave it to her, saying,—

“We beg of your Highness to accept this, with our most humble apologies. You may open it and look within. You will not, I think, find anything missing,” he added.

She took the dressing-bag, and opening it, found within it the cheap leather bag she had brought from Treysa. A glance inside showed her that the jewels were still there, although there were so many that she, of course, did not count them.

For a few moments she remained in silence; then thanking the two for their generosity, she said,—

“I cannot accept their return without giving you some reward, Mr Redmayne. I am, unfortunately, without very much money, but I desire you to accept these—if they are really worth your acceptance,” and taking from the bag a magnificent pair of diamond earrings she gave them into his hand. “You, no doubt, can turn them into money,” she added.

The old fellow, usually so cool and imperturbable, became at once confused.

“Really, Princess,” he declared, “we could not think of accepting these. You, perhaps, do not realise that they are worth at least seven hundred pounds.”

“No; I have no idea of their value. I only command you to accept them as a slight acknowledgment of my heartfelt gratitude.”

“But—”

“There are no buts. Place them in your pocket, and say nothing further.”

A silence again fell between them, while the cab rolled along the asphalte of the boulevard.

Suddenly Bourne said,—

“Princess, you cannot know what a weight of anxiety your generous gift has lifted off our minds. Roddy will not tell you, but it is right that you should know. The fact is that at this moment we are all three almost penniless—without the means of escape from Paris. The money we shall get for those diamonds will enable us to get away from here in safety.”

She turned and peered into his face, lit by the uncertain light of the street lamps. In his countenance she saw a deep, earnest look.

“Then the truth is that without money to provide means of escape you have even sacrificed your chances of liberty, in order to return my jewels to me!” she exclaimed, for the first time realising the true position.

He made no response; his silence was an affirmative. Kinder, who had spoken no word, sat looking at her, entirely absorbed by her grace and beauty.

“Well,” she exclaimed at last, “I wonder if you would all three do me another small favour?”

“We shall be only too delighted,” was Bourne’s quick reply. “Only please understand, your Highness, that we accept these earrings out of pure necessity. If we were not so sorely in need of money, we should most certainly refuse.”

“Do not let us mention them again,” she said quickly. “Listen. The fact is this. I have very little ready money, and do not wish at this moment to reveal my whereabouts by applying to my lawyers in Vienna or in Treysa. Therefore it will be best to sell some of my jewellery—say one thousand pounds’ worth. Could you arrange this for me?”

“Certainly,” Roddy replied, “with the greatest pleasure. For that single row diamond necklet we could get from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds—if that amount is sufficient.”

She reopened the bag, and after searching in the fickle light shed by the street lamps she at length pulled out the necklet in question—one of the least valuable of the heap of jewels that had been restored to her in so curious and romantic a manner.

The old jewel thief took it, weighed it in his hand, and examined it critically under the feeble light. He had already valued it on the day when he had secured it. It was worth in the market about four thousand pounds, but in the secret channel where he would sell it he would not obtain more than twelve hundred for it, as, whatever he said, the purchaser would still believe it to be stolen property, and would therefore have the stones re-cut and reset.

“You might try Père Perrin,” Guy remarked. “It would be quicker to take it to him than to send it to Amsterdam or Leyden.”

“Or why not old Lestocard, in Brussels? He always gives decent prices, and is as safe as anybody,” suggested Kinder.

“Is time of great importance to your Highness?” asked the head of the association, speaking with his decidedly Cockney twang.

“A week or ten days—not longer,” she replied.

“Then we will try Père Perrin to-morrow, and let you know the result. Of course, I shall not tell him whose property it is. He will believe that we have obtained it in the ordinary way of our profession. Perrin is an old Jew who lives over at Batignolles, and who asks no questions. The stuff he buys goes to Russia or to Italy.”

“Very well. I leave it to you to do your best for me, Mr Redmayne,” was her reply. “I put my trust in you implicitly.”

“Your Imperial Highness is one of the few persons—beyond our own friends here—who do. To most people Roddy Redmayne is a man not to be trusted, even as far as you can see him!” and he grinned, adding, “But here we are at the Pont d’Austerlitz. Harry and I will descend, and you, Bourne, will accompany the Princess to her hotel.”

Then he shouted an order to the man to stop, and after again receiving her Highness’s warmest thanks, the expert thief and his companion alighted, and, bowing to her, disappeared.

When the cab moved on again towards the Place de la Bastille, she turned to the Englishman beside her, saying—

“I owe all this to you, Mr Bourne, and I assure you I feel most deeply grateful. One day I hope I may be of some service to you, if,” and she paused and looked at him—“well, if only to secure your withdrawal from a criminal life.”

“Ah, Princess,” he sighed wistfully, “if I only could see my way clear to live honestly! But to do so requires money, money—and I have none. The gentlemanly dress which you see me wearing is only an imposture and a fraud—like all my life, alas! nowadays.”

She realised that this man, a gentleman by birth, was eager to extricate himself from the low position into which he had, by force of adverse circumstances, fallen. He was a cosmopolitan of cosmopolitans, a quiet, slow-speaking, slightly built, high-browed, genial-souled man, with his slight, dark moustache, shrewd dark eyes, and a mouth that had humour smiling at the corners; a man of middle height, his dark hair showing the first sign of changing early to grey, and a countenance bitten and scarred by all the winds and suns of the round globe; a wise and quiet man, able to keep his own counsel, able to get his own end with few words, and yet unable to shape his own destiny; a marvellous impostor, the friend of men and women of the haut monde, who all thought him a gentleman, and never for one instant suspected his true occupation.

Such was the man who had once risked his life for hers, the man who had now returned her stolen jewels to her, and who was at that moment seated at her side escorting her to her hotel on terms of intimate friendship.

She thought deeply over his bitter words of regret that he was what he was. Could she assist him, she wondered. But how?

“Remain patient,” she urged, in a calm, kindly tone. “I shall never forget my great indebtedness to you, and I will do my utmost in order that you may yet realise your wish to lead an honest life. At this moment I am, like yourself, an outcast, wondering what the future may have in store for me. But be patient and hope, for it shall be my most strenuous endeavour to assist you to realise your commendable desire.”

“Ah! really your Highness is far too kind,” he answered, in a voice that seemed to her to falter in emotion. “I only hope that some way will open out to me. I would welcome any appointment, however menial, that took me out of my present shameful profession—that of a thief.”

“I really believe you,” she said. “I can quite understand that it is against the nature of a man of honour to find himself in your position.”

“I assure you, Princess, that I hate myself,” he declared in earnest confidence. “What greater humility can befall a man than to be compelled to admit that he is a thief—as I admitted to you this afternoon? I might have concealed the fact, it is true, and have returned the jewels anonymously; yet an explanation of the reason of my sudden flight from Treysa after all your kindness was surely due to you. And—well, I was forced to tell you the whole truth, and allow you to judge me as you will.”

“As I have already said, Mr Bourne, your profession does not concern me. Many a man of note and of high position and power in the Ministries of Europe commits far greater peculations than you do, yet is regarded as a great man, and holds the favour of his sovereign until he commits the unpardonable sin of being found out. No, a man is not always what his profession is.”

“I thank you for regarding me in such a lenient light, your Highness, and I only look forward with hope to the day when, by some turn of Fortune’s wheel, I gain the liberty to be honest,” he answered.

“Remember, Mr Bourne, that I am your friend; and I hope you are still mine in return,” she said, for the cab had now stopped at the corner of the Rue d’Amsterdam, as he had ordered it, for it was running unnecessary risk for him to drive with her up to the hotel.

“Thank you, Princess,” he said earnestly, raising his hat, his dark, serious eyes meeting hers. “Let us be mutual friends, and perhaps we can help each other. Who knows? When I lay in the hospital with my chest broken in I often used to wonder what you would say if you knew my real identity. You, an Imperial Princess, were sending flowers and fruit from the royal table to a criminal for whom half the police in Europe were in active search!”

“Even an Imperial Princess is not devoid of gratitude,” she said, when he was out upon the pavement and had closed the door of the cab.

The vehicle moved forward to the hotel, and he was left there, bowing in silence before her, his hat in his hand.

To the hall porter she gave the precious bag, with orders to send it at once to her room, and then turned to pay the cabman.

But the man merely raised his white hat respectfully, saying,—

“Pardon, Madame, but I have already been paid.”

Therefore she gave him a couple of francs as tip.

Then she ascended in the lift to her room, where a porter with the bag was awaiting her, and unlocking the door, found that little Ignatia, tired out by her afternoon drive, had not stirred.

Locking the door and throwing off her things, she opened the bag and took out the magnificent ornaments one by one. She had not counted them before leaving the palace, therefore could not possibly tell if all were intact. In handfuls she took them out and laid them in a glittering heap upon the dressing-table, when of a sudden she found among them a small envelope containing something hard to the touch.

This she opened eagerly, and took out a cheap, tiny little brooch, about half an inch long, representing a beetle, scarlet, with black spots—the innocent little insect which has so interested all of us back in our youthful days—a ladybird.

The ornament was a very cheap one, costing one franc at the outside, but in the envelope with it was a letter. This she opened, scanned the few brief lines quickly, then re-read it very carefully, and stood staring at the little brooch in her hand, puzzled and mystified.

The words written there revealed to her the existence of a secret.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Ladybird.

The note enclosed with the cheap little brooch ran,—

“If your Imperial Highness will wear this always in a prominent position, so that it can be seen, she will receive the assistance of unknown friends.”

That was all. Yet it was surely a curious request, for her to wear that cheap little ornament.

She turned it over in her hand, then placing it upon a black dress, saw how very prominently the scarlet insect showed.

Then she replaced all the jewels in her bag and retired, full of reflections upon her meeting with the friendly thieves and her curious adventure.

Next morning she took the bag to the Crédit Lyonnais, as Roddy Redmayne had suggested, where it was sealed and a receipt for it was given her. After that she breathed more freely, for the recovery of her jewels now obviated the necessity of her applying either to her father or to Treysa.

The little ladybird she wore, as old Roddy and his companions suggested, and at the bank and in the shops a number of people glanced at it curiously, without, of course, being aware that it was a secret symbol—of what? Claire wondered.

Both Roddy and Guy had told her that they feared to come to her at the Terminus, as a detective was always lurking in the hall; therefore she was not surprised to receive, about four o’clock, a note from Roddy asking her to meet him at the Vachette at nine.

When Ignatia was asleep she took a cab to the dingy little place, where she found Roddy smoking alone at the same table set out upon the pavement, and joined him there. She shook hands with him, and then was compelled to sip the bock he ordered.

“We will go in a moment,” he whispered, so that a man seated near should not overhear. “I thought it best to meet you here rather than risk your hotel. Our friend Bourne asked me to present his best compliments. He left this morning for London.”

“For London! Why?”

“Because—well,” he added, with a mysterious smile, “there were two agents of police taking an undue interest in him, you know.”

“Ah!” she laughed; “I understand perfectly.”

The old thief, who wore evening dress beneath his light black overcoat, smoked his cigar with an easy, nonchalant air. He passed with every one as an elderly Englishman of comfortable means; yet if one watched closely his quick eyes and the cunning look which sometimes showed in them, they would betray to the observer that he was a sly, ingenious old fellow—a perfect past master of his craft.

Presently they rose, and after she had dismissed her cab, walked in company along the narrow street, at that hour almost deserted.

“The reason I asked you here, your Highness, was to give you the proceeds of the necklet. I sold it to-day to old Perrin for twelve hundred and sixty pounds. A small price, but it was all he would give, as, of course, he believed that I could never have come by it honestly,” and he grinned broadly, taking from his pocket an envelope bulky with French thousand-franc bank-notes and handing it to her.

“I am really very much obliged,” she answered, transferring the envelope to her pocket. “You have rendered me another very great service, Mr Redmayne; for as a matter of fact I was almost at the end of my money, and to apply for any would have at once betrayed my whereabouts.”

“Ah, your Highness,” replied the old thief, “you also have rendered me a service; for with what you gave us last night we shall be able to leave Paris at once. And it is highly necessary, I can tell you, if we are to retain our liberty.”

“Oh! then you also are leaving,” she exclaimed, surprised, as they walked slowly side by side. She almost regretted, for he had acted with such friendliness towards her.

“Yes; it is imperative. I go to Brussels, and Kinder to Ostend. Are you making a long stay here?”

“To-morrow I too may go; but I don’t know where.”

“Why not to London, Princess?” he suggested. “My daughter Leucha is there, and would be delighted to be of any service to you—act as your maid or nurse to the little Princess. She’s a good girl, is Leucha.”

“Is she married?” asked her Highness.

“No. I trained her, and she’s as shrewd and clever a young woman as there is in all London. She’s a lady’s maid,” he added, “and to tell you the truth—for you may as well know it at first as at last—she supplies us with much valuable information. She takes a place, for instance, in London or in the country, takes note of where her lady’s jewels are kept, and if they are accessible, gives us all the details how best to secure them, and then, on ground of ill-health, or an afflicted mother, or some such excuse, she leaves. And after a week or two we just look in and see what we can pick up. So clever is she that never once has she been suspected,” he added, with paternal pride. “Of course, it isn’t a nice profession for a girl,” he added apologetically, “and I’d like to see her doing something honest. Yet how can she? we couldn’t get on without her.”

The Princess remained silent for a few moments. Surely her life now was a strange contrast to that at Treysa, mixing with criminals and becoming the confidante of their secrets!

“I should like to meet your daughter,” she remarked simply.

“If your Imperial Highness would accept her services, I’m sure she might be of service to you. She’s a perfect maid, all the ladies have said; and besides, she knows the world, and would protect you in your present dangerous and lonely position. You want a female companion—if your Highness will permit me to say so—and if you do not object to my Leucha on account of her profession, you are entirely welcome to her services, which to you will be faithful and honest, if nothing else.”

“You are very fond of her!” the Princess exclaimed. “Very, your Highness. She is my only child. My poor wife died when she was twelve, and ever since that she has been with us, living upon her wits—and living well too. To confess all this to you I am ashamed; yet now you know who and what I am, and you are our friend, it is only right that you should be made aware of everything,” the old fellow said frankly.

“Quite right. I admire you for telling me the truth. In a few days I shall cross to London, and shall be extremely glad of your daughter’s services if you will kindly write to her.”

“When do you think of leaving?”

“Well, probably the day after to-morrow, by the first service via Calais.”

“Then Leucha shall meet that train on arrival at Charing Cross. She will be dressed as a maid, in black, with a black straw sailor hat and a white lace cravat. She will at once enter your service. The question of salary will not be discussed. You have assisted us, and it is our duty to help you in return, especially at this most perilous moment, when you are believed to have eloped with a lover.”

“I’m sure you are very, very kind, Mr Redmayne,” she declared. “Truth to tell, it is so very difficult for me to know in whom to trust; I have been betrayed so often. But I have every confidence in both you and your daughter; therefore I most gladly accept your offer, for, as you say, I am sadly in need of some one to look after the child—some one, indeed, in whom I can trust.” An exalted charm seemed to invest her always.

“Well, your Highness,” exclaimed the pleasant-faced old fellow, “you have been kind and tolerant to us unfortunates, and I hope to prove to you that even a thief can show his gratitude.”

“You have already done so, Mr Redmayne; and believe me, I am very much touched by all that you have done—your actions are those of an honest man, not those of an outlaw.”

“Don’t let us discuss the past, your Highness,” he said, somewhat confused by her kindly words; “let’s think of the future—your own future, I mean. You can trust Leucha implicitly, and as the police, fortunately, have no suspicion of her, she will be perfectly free to serve you. Hitherto she has always obtained employment with an ulterior motive, but this fact, I hope, will not prejudice her in your eyes. I can only assure you that for her father’s sake she will do anything, and that for his sake she will serve you both loyally and well.” He halted beneath a street lamp, and tearing a leaf from a small notebook, wrote an address in Granville Gardens, Shepherd’s Bush, which he gave to her, saying: “This is in case you miss her at Charing Cross. Send her a letter, and she will at once come to you.”

Again she thanked him, and they walked to the corner of the Boulevard Saint Germain, where they halted to part.

“Remember, Princess, command me in any way,” said the old man, raising his hat politely. “I am always at your service. I have not concealed anything from you. Take me as I am, your servant.”

“Thank you, Mr Redmayne. I assure you I deeply appreciate and am much touched by your kindness to a defenceless woman. Au revoir.” And giving him her hand again, she mounted into a fiacre and drove straight back to her hotel.

Her friendship with this gang of adventurers was surely giving a curious turn to the current of strange events. She, a woman of imperial birth, had at last found friends, and among the class where one would hesitate to look for them—the outcasts of society! The more she reflected upon the situation, the more utterly bewildering it was to her. She was unused as a child to the ways of the world. Her life had always been spent within the narrow confines of the glittering Courts of Europe, and she had only known of “the people” vaguely. Every hour she now lived more deeply impressed her that “the people” possessed a great and loving heart for the ill-judged and the oppressed.

At the hotel she counted the notes Roddy had given her, and found the sum that he had named. The calm, smiling old fellow was actually an honest thief!

The following day she occupied herself in making some purchases, and in the evening a police agent called in order to inform her that up to the present nothing had been ascertained regarding her stolen jewels. They had knowledge of a gang of expert English jewel-thieves being in Paris, and were endeavouring to discover them.

The Princess heard what the man said, but, keeping her own counsel, thanked him for his endeavours and dismissed him. She congratulated herself that Roddy and his two associates were already out of France.

On the following afternoon, about half-past four, when the Continental express drew slowly into Charing Cross Station, where a knot of eager persons as usual awaited its arrival, the Princess, leading little Ignatia and wearing the ladybird as a brooch, descended from a first-class compartment and looked about her in the bustling crowd of arrivals. A porter took her wraps and placed them in a four-wheeled cab for her, and then taking her baggage ticket said,—

“You’ll meet me yonder at the Custom ’ouse, mum,” leaving her standing by the cab, gazing around for the woman in black who was to be her maid. For fully ten minutes, while the baggage was being taken out of the train, she saw no one answering to Roddy’s description of his daughter; but at last from out of the crowd came a tall, slim, dark-haired, rather handsome young woman, with black eyes and refined, regular features, neatly dressed in black, wearing a sailor hat, a white lace cravat, and black kid gloves.

As she approached the Princess smiled at her; whereupon the girl, blushing in confusion, asked simply,—

“Is it the Crown Princess Claire? or am I mistaken?”

“Yes. And you are Leucha Redmayne,” answered her Highness, shaking hands with her, for from the first moment she became favourably impressed.

“Oh, your Highness, I really hope I have not kept you waiting,” she exclaimed concernedly. “But father’s letter describing you was rather hurried and vague, and I’ve seen several ladies alone with little girls, though none of them seemed to be—well, not one of them seemed to be a Princess—only yourself. Besides, you are wearing the little ladybird.”

Her Highness smiled, explained that she was very friendly with her father, who had suggested that she should enter her service as maid, and expressed a hope that she was willing.

“My father has entrusted to me a duty, Princess,” was the dark-eyed girl’s serious reply. “And I hope that you will not find me wanting in the fulfilment of it.”

And then they went together within the Customs barrier and claimed the baggage.

The way in which she did this showed the Princess at once that Leucha Redmayne was a perfectly trained maid.

How many ladies, she wondered, had lost their jewels after employing her?

Chapter Nineteen.

Leucha Makes Confession.

Leucha Redmayne was, as her father had declared, a very clever young woman.

She was known as “the Ladybird” on account of her habit of flitting from place to place, constantly taking situations in likely families. Most of the ladies in whose service she had been had regretted when she left, and many of them actually offered her higher wages to remain. She was quick and neat, had taken lessons in hairdressing and dressmaking in Paris, could speak French fluently, and possessed that quiet, dignified demeanour so essential to the maid of an aristocratic woman.

Her references were excellent. A well-known Duchess—whose jewels, however, had been too carefully guarded—and half a dozen other titled ladies testified to her honesty and good character, and also to their regret on account of her being compelled to leave their service; therefore, armed with such credentials, she never had difficulty in obtaining any situation that was vacant.

So ingenious was she, and so cleverly did she contrive to make her excuses for leaving the service of her various mistresses, that nobody, not even the most astute officers from Scotland Yard, ever suspected her.

The case of Lady Harefield’s jewels, which readers of the present narrative of a royal scandal will well remember, was a typical one. Leucha, who saw in the Morning Post that Lady Harefield wanted a maid to travel, applied, and at once obtained the situation. She soon discovered that her Ladyship possessed some extremely valuable diamonds; but they were in the bank at Derby, near which town the country place was situated. She accompanied her Ladyship to the Riviera for the season, and then returning to England found out that her mistress intended to go to Court upon a certain evening, and that she would have the diamonds brought up from Derby on the preceding day. His Lordship’s secretary was to be sent for them. As soon as she obtained this information she was taken suddenly ill, and left Lady Harefield’s service to go back to her fictitious home in the country. At once she called her father and Bourne, with the result that on the day in question, when Lord Harefield’s secretary arrived at St. Pancras Station, the bag containing the jewels disappeared, and was never again seen.