I did think a great deal of it, and the thought to me was ecstasy.

I often used to wonder, as I contemplated in my mind's eye this little wicked Cupid sitting on my bed, whether he went and sat in like manner on Dolores', and if he did, what the little imp of mischief said to her.

But time flew, long as the interval seemed at first between February and April.

I did not see half as much of my Dolores as I could have wished; Mrs. Darbyshire and a host of other ladies absorbed her.

After a week or two my cousin Ethel joined her sage counsels to the rest in the matter of the bridesmaids' dresses. She herself was to be the chief of that important band, to which sundry male recruits in the shape of small boys were to be added by way of pages.

I never could quite gather how Ethel took my engagement. Her congratulation assumed the form of a short note.

"Dear Bill," it ran, "so you've done it!

"Well, dear old fellow, I saw it was a dead certainty at Valoro, and I congratulate you both and wish you every happiness with all my heart.

"Dear little Dolores is a right good sort, and if I were a man I think I should fall in love with her myself. I am sure she will make you happy; mind you take care of her!

"There is one thing I am sure you will be glad to hear.

"Give her a season or two over an easy country to begin with, and I assure you she will ride to hounds as well as any girl born and bred in the Shires. Believe me, dear Bill, I am speaking seriously, and you know me too well to think I would deceive you on such a matter.

"I leave you to teach her to shoot; I think every girl should be able to handle a gun; it gives her something to talk about to other girls' brothers."

This was the gist of the letter, and I put it aside with a sigh, wondering whether dear old Ethel would ever marry herself. In that mood, I regretted that I had ever lingered in those dear old corridors at Bannington when the moonbeams slanted through the mullions of the narrow old Tudor windows, and Ethel came down the broad oaken staircase with a look of well simulated surprise in her eyes at finding me there, dressed early for dinner and waiting for her to surrender those red lips of hers in a cousinly kiss.

Cousinly?

Well, regrets were unavailing; I could not call the kisses back again, and how was I to know I was going to meet Dolores and of course fall straightway in love with her?

That is the way a man argues himself into a comfortable state of mind when his half forgotten peccadilloes of meanness spring up and prick him!

St. Nivel came round daily with his sister, and, to use his own expression, "took me in hand." This taking in hand meant principally marching me off to the tailors and hosiers to order new clothes.

"A man when he is going to be married," he said sententiously, "must make a clean sweep of all his old clothes and start afresh. It's a duty he owes to his future wife—and his tailor!"

He of course elected himself my best man, and only regretted that I was not in the "Brigade" that a dash of colour might be added to the ceremony by lining the church with his dear "Coldstreamers."

He was, however, getting tired of the Army. He confided to me his intention to "chuck it" at an early date, and devote himself to a country life entirely.

"In fact," he added, summing up the whole situation, "I mean to buy pigs and live pretty," whatever that expression might mean. His ideas of matrimony were, however, almost entirely of a pessimistic order, as he was for ever slapping me on the back and urging me to buck up, mistaking those delicious love musings which, I suppose, every bridegroom indulges in for fits of depression.

"My dear children," said the old Don to us one day, when we were all together, he, Dolores, and I; "my dear children, I want you to make me a promise."

"Of course we will, Padre," we both answered. "What is it?"

The "Padre" and the "dear children" were now well established forms of address, and I think the old man delighted in them.

"I want you to promise me," he replied, "that you will spend some part of the year with me in Valoro."

"Of course we will," we chorused.

Dolores whispered a few words in my ear to which I readily nodded assent.

"Padre," she continued aloud, "we will come and spend Christmas and the New Year with you, and we will bring Lord St. Nivel and Ethel with us. I am sure they will come. Then," she added, turning to me, "we will have all our courtship over again."

In such happy thoughts the time sped away. Don Juan, as an act of gratitude for what he called "a dutiful acquiescence" to his wishes, purchased a town house for us in Grosvenor Square.

"During the season," he added meditatively, "perhaps you will find a little room for me"—most of the best bedrooms measured about 25 by 40—"that is all I need. After consideration, I have decided that it would be too much to ask you to have any of my dear snakes. If I bring any with me, I shall board them out at the Zoo."

The tenant of my manor house by the Solent, when he heard I was going to be married, called upon me at my club.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I'm a sportsman; I couldn't think of keepin' on your house when I know you'll want it to settle down in. I've seen another across the water that'll suit me just as well, and you shall have your own again before the weddin'."

He was a kind-hearted man and sent me a wedding present—a silver bootjack to take off my hunting boots with. He said it might be useful to both of us, which was a distinct libel on Dolores' dear little feet.

At last the eve of our wedding came and Claridge's Hotel was filled from basement to roof, principally with the relatives of both families. For a bevy of Dons with their wives and daughters, all kindred of my little Dolores, had crossed the Atlantic, glad of the excuse to visit London, and a contingent from France of the old noblesse, her mother's relatives, had arrived to do honour to the nuptials of the little heiress. And because she was already a large possessor of the goods of this world they brought more to swell it; gold, silver, and precious stones in such quantities that it took two big rooms at Claridge's to contain them, and four detectives to watch them, two by day and two by night.

But among these presents were two which puzzled me greatly—they came anonymously—a riviere of splendid diamonds for Dolores, a splendid motor car for me.

Had she been but a poor relation I fear her display of wedding gifts would have been but a meagre one. As it was, perhaps St. Nivel's terse comment on the "show," as he called it, was nearest to the truth.

"Bill," he said confidentially, "all this splendour is simply barbaric."

But nobody grudged little Dolores her grand wedding, nor the magnificent gifts, for every one loved her.

I was sitting calmly at breakfast on the morning of the day preceding our wedding, with my mind filled to overflowing with the happiness before me, when St. Nivel burst in upon me.

"Look here, Bill," he cried, flourishing a newspaper before my eyes. "Look here, some one has got his deserts at last!"

I took the paper from him and read the paragraph he pointed to; it was headed—

"Tragic Death of the Duke of Rittersheim."

I paused, put down the newspaper, and looked at St. Nivel.

"Yes," he said, interpreting my look; "you will be troubled with him no more in this world; he's dead. Read it and see."

I took up the paper and read on—

"MUNICH, Tuesday.

"Considerable consternation was caused this morning in the Castle of Rittersheim and its neighbourhood upon the fact becoming known that His Serene Highness the Duke had passed away during the night. It appears that the Duke has been in bad health ever since his return from England two months ago, where he had the misfortune to break his arm; he suffered also the loss of a very dear friend, in Mr. Summers, an American gentleman who, for some time, had been acting as his secretary, and whose body, it will be remembered, was found under very mysterious circumstances, at the time the Duke left England, in a tunnel on the Great Western Railway, just after the Bath express had passed through, in which train it is known Mr. Summers had been travelling with an elderly gentleman. A rumour concerning the connection of Mr. Summers with a murder which had taken place in the Bath train seems to have preyed on the Duke's mind, and he has been unable to sleep for some weeks past.

"It is presumed that for this reason he had commenced the habit of injecting morphia, as a large hypodermic syringe, with an empty morphia bottle, were found beside his dead body. The general opinion is, that he succumbed to an overdose."

"Well, what do you think," asked St. Nivel, as I laid down the paper, "accident or suicide?"

"It is impossible to say," I replied. "Nobody can tell, and I should think that will be one of the problems which will go down to posterity unsolved."

"As unsolved, I suppose," he answered, "as the mystery of your old lady of Bath?"

That was a subject I had barred since my pledge to Don Juan. "Who can tell?" I answered with a shrug of the shoulders, "I have given it up. I never think of it."

"I do, though," replied my cousin, "and I also recollect, very often with mingled feelings, the way in which the finding of that man Summers' body in the tunnel was hushed up, and no further efforts made to connect him with the murder of poor Brooks."

"I don't see that any good purpose would have been served," I answered, "if they had connected him with it. He could not have been tried and hanged."

"No, certainly not, but there would have been the satisfaction in knowing. But I believe your deceased friend the Duke of Rittersheim worked that. In my opinion he threw a cloak of some sort over the Bath case too, and I don't suppose you will ever discover the truth of it."

"No," I answered solemnly, "I don't suppose I ever shall."

And I don't suppose I ever should but for one of those little chances which occur in a man's life, trifles in themselves, but leading on to great discoveries.

The next day after that little talk, amid the pomp of a great wedding, almost regal in its magnificence, I took Dolores to be my little wife, to have and to hold from that day forth in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, until death we two doth part.

And from that time I walked as on air, and forgot the murky clouds which had darkened my horizon in the days before I found my happiness.



CHAPTER XXI

MADAME LA COMTESSE

It was five years after my marriage, or to be correct, in May of the year nineteen hundred and seven, that Dolores and I, leaving our three dear little children in the manor house on the shores of the Solent whilst we took a flying trip to Switzerland, found ourselves one heavenly spring morning standing on the balcony of the great hotel at Lucerne which is built on the very edge of the blue lake.

"Well, where shall we go to-day, darling?" I asked my little wife as I slipped one hand round her waist and took the cigar from between my lips with the other; "shall we ascend grim Pilatus, or cog-wheel it up the Rigi and have lunch at the little hotel at the top, or shall we idle away the day in a boat on the lake? What say you, little one?"

An old German passing below with his hand behind his back, feeling his way gingerly along on gouty feet with the aid of a stick, looked up, smiled, and shook his head at us. He took us for a newly married couple!

When the laughter provoked by this little interlude had subsided, I once more put the question to Dolores.

"Where shall we go to-day?"

"Darling," she answered, "I'm entirely for the lazy day on the lake. I want to be idle."

So the lazy day on the lake it was.

A small hamper containing a cold chicken, some ham, a salad, with other accessaries for lunch, and the added luxury of a gipsy tea-set, having been duly put into a boat, we followed it, and taking our seats, were met with the following query of the boatman, who sat looking at us, his two oars poised ready for work—

"Where will you go?"

We exchanged a significant glance, then gave voice simultaneously to the thought which was in both our minds.

"Anywhere."

The boatman nodded sagaciously; here again he even—the experienced—was deceived into believing that he had charge of a pair who had recently sworn to keep each other warm for life.

Had he been asked for his opinion concerning us, his reply expressed in his native tongue would have been briefly—

"Honey mooners!"

As I had reason to believe, after finding that we were perfectly indifferent as to where we went, he decided to have a little trip to suit his own convenience. He would go and see his sister at the Convent of The Nativity up the lake.

He continued sagely nodding his head as he rowed us away, and in reply to a question of mine as to what direction he had decided on, winked confidentially.

"Monsieur et madame," he replied, "leave it to me. You will have a great surprise."

We did, but not in the way he intended.

On the dark face of the boatman as he worked steadily up the lake I saw both perplexity and concern; first, although I held Dolores' hand, as I usually did on such occasions when we were alone—or nearly so, for the Swiss oarsman counted for little—yet the man saw no yearning desire on my part to kiss her, as was the case with most husbands in the early days of the lune de miel.

Several times I noticed that he gave me opportunity by turning round and straining his neck to see imaginary obstacles in the way for the fulfilment of this custom, which, to his surprise, I did not avail myself of. There were no blushes, no abrupt separations, and no assumed looks of unconcern when he turned round again.

The situation was a puzzling one. But there was a pale cast of thought over his features in addition, which I only knew the reason for later on. He was puzzling his brains to find an excuse for taking us to the very plain looking convent up the lake which, although beautifully situated, yet presented no extraordinary attractions beyond a well ordered and ancient garden, laid out in terraces on the side of one of the lower slopes of the mountains, and, of course, the beautiful view. Therefore when, at that curve in the lake when the Rigi comes into fullest view, a smile of satisfaction overspread the boatman's face, I knew, after, that he had solved the difficulty and found the excuse for taking us to such a very ordinary resort.

"I will show these simple English people," he had reasoned, "the long-haired goats. I will make a specialite of these animals for the delectation of this cold-blooded bride and bridegroom, who do not kiss when I turn round to observe the prospect."

In the course of an hour and a half we arrived off a white terrace-like landing place with a flight of steps leading down to the lake.

All questions as to our destination had been answered by the boatman with mysterious nods and winks, giving promise of a stupendous surprise in store. His object was to get us safely on shore before he opened the subject of the hairy goats, lest we should, insular like, change our minds and not give him the opportunity of visiting his sister. The boat shot alongside the steps, the man sprang out and assisted us to land; a nun who had been working in the garden came down and met us.

"Ma soeur," explained our boatman, "this English milor and his lady have a great desire to see your most splendid goats!"

The good sister looked surprised, an expression which Dolores and I shared with her, mingled with amusement. We had, however, no particular objection to inspecting her goats, notwithstanding.

"Our Mother," she replied amiably, "I am sure, will be pleased to show monsieur and madame the goats if it will give them any gratification."

She preceded us through the beautifully kept kitchen garden, and up a flight of steps to another above, each foot of the productive soil being used to advantage, as we saw by the abundance of the crops reared on the sunny slope.

We mounted up from garden to garden until we came to a large terrace full of flowers, which surrounded the conventual buildings and commanded a magnificent view of the lake.

Here the sister left us.

"Will monsieur and madame divert themselves here," she asked, "while I go fetch our Mother?"

Delighted with the beautiful surroundings and the glorious stretch of blue water below us, Dolores and I were quite content to enjoy the lovely scene by ourselves; our boatman had long since slunk off down a side alley to find his relative the lay sister.

We had walked half the length of the broad terrace absorbed in the view, when, turning from it, we became aware that we were not alone. At the farther end of the terrace was an old lady sitting in an invalid's chair, also enjoying the beautiful prospect. By her side sat a nun on a garden chair, holding a large white sunshade over her; the sun was very hot. Not wishing to disturb her privacy, we turned back and met the Reverend Mother approaching with our conductress.

She was amiability itself. Certainly she would show monsieur and madame the goats. She was unaware that they had become so celebrated. Perhaps monsieur and madame kept goats in England?

"No; you have come only by the recommendation of the boatman, Fritz Killner?" she asked. "No doubt he wished to give you the diversion of the long passage in the boat."

I saw a look of amused intelligence pass over the Reverend Mother's face; she had divined the object of the boatman's visit. In fact, she frankly told us later—when we had seen the goats—that he had a sister in the community, and thus let the cat out of the bag.

We were not by any means petrified with astonishment at the goats; they seemed very ordinary animals, but with very long white coats. I had seen better in a goat chaise at Ramsgate.

But we had, at the Reverend Mother's solicitation, to make the tour of the convent.

We inspected the cows, the pigs, the orchard and a very respectable range of glass houses.

Then we went to the chapel, and finally to the refectory; here the hospitality of the white-clad order burst forth; we must have dejeuner.

The good Superior waved aside the mention of our cold fowl, and insisted on cutlets and an omelette. Meanwhile, we were to walk with her upon the terrace to improve our appetite—we were simply ravenous already.

"I have brought you to the terrace, monsieur and madam," proceeded the nun, "not only to admire the fine view and increase your appetites, but also to present you to Madame la Comtesse."

"Madame la Comtesse?" I repeated inquiringly.

She indicated the old white-haired lady sitting at the farther end of the terrace.

"That is Madame la Comtesse, the founder of this religious house," she explained. "She delights to see English visitors. She adores your nation. Come, let us go to her, but I ask you to approach quite near her, or she will not see you clearly. She is shortsighted."

Walking one on either hand of the Reverend Mother, we approached Madame la Comtesse.

The attendant nun had fixed the large white sunshade in a socket in the invalid chair; she was writing at the old lady's dictation. We came quite near before the Comtesse heard us approaching. Then she turned her head and looked at us, her kind old features breaking into a very sweet smile; her glance wandered from the Mother Superior to Dolores, then to me; there it stopped.

A little more frail, a little paler, yet with a bright colour in her cheeks, her still clear eyes gazing up to mine with an alarmed look in them; I knew her.

From the very first moment that she moved in her chair and turned to us; from the instant that that movement of her head disarranged the silk scarf which was wrapped round her throat, and laying it bare, showed a broad red scar upon it, I knew her; knew her for my dear old lady of Monmouth Street, Bath, at whose bidding I had crossed the Atlantic and endured many perils. I knew her, and as I gazed upon her her lips moved and formed two words—

"Mr. Anstruther!"



CHAPTER XXII

THE QUEEN'S ERROR

The Reverend Mother looked from Madame la Comtesse to me, and from me back again to the Comtesse.

"Madame," she said, addressing her, "without doubt you are old friends; here is a re-union of the most pleasant!"

We heard her words, both of us, I have no doubt, but we did not answer her; my thoughts were back again in that basement room at Monmouth Street. I saw "Madame la Comtesse," this healthy, bright looking old lady, lying on the disordered bed, her clothes soaked in blood, a great wound in her throat.

How did she come here?

How did she escape?

Those were the two questions which, for the moment, absorbed my whole faculties.

Her face, as I gazed upon it, expressed first blank amazement and alarm; then pleasure; finally the formation in a strong mind of a great resolve; she was the first to recover her entire self-possession, which, perhaps, she had really never lost.

"Mr. Anstruther," she said in English, extending her frail, delicate looking hand, "I am delighted to meet you again."

She took my hand in both of hers, and still holding it looked up into my face.

"You are well," she said, "I can see that, and happy. So you should be with such a charming wife. Please present me to her."

Dolores wanted no presentation; I think she loved the dear old lady at the very first sight. She went to her and gave her both her hands, and the Comtesse drew her face down to hers and kissed her.

"Your good husband did me a great service once, my dear," she said, "perhaps the greatest service a man can do a woman."

Dolores looked down at her wonderingly, and then at me.

"I wish I could tell you what it was, my dear," she continued, "but it is a secret. Still, perhaps your husband will tell you, when I have told him. I do not think that he realised the great benefit he did me at the time, for the good reason that he did not know its extent."

Dolores nodded her head and smiled, but I am sure she did not understand. How should she? I did not understand myself.

Our hostess, the nun, stood looking from one to the other of us with a smile on her face of that fixity which denoted that she did not understand a single word of what we were talking about.

Madame la Comtesse noted her isolation at once.

"Pray forgive me, chere mere," she said, breaking into French, which she pronounced with a very charming accent. "Mr. Anstruther and I are old friends. I meet madame, his wife, for the first time today."

In voluble language the Reverend Mother expressed her gratification at so happy a re-union, and in the midst of her compliments a nun arrived to say that dejeuner was served.

"Go to your lunch, my dears," the Comtesse said, "you must be famished after your long row on the lake." We had told her of our morning excursion. "Come back to me here afterwards," she continued, "if you will, and perhaps I will tell you that which you had a right to know long ago. Go now, and come back to me. I shall be under those trees yonder in the little arbour, which is cool in the heat of the afternoon."

Dolores and I went off to our dejeuner, but though it was excellent, we ate but little; we were thinking of the Comtesse.

"What a dear old lady she is," commented my warm-hearted little wife. "I don't think I have ever seen any one with such a sweet expression as she has!"

Neither had I, save, of course, Dolores.

"But whatever can she have to say to you, Will?" she continued, "and what is this great service you have done her?"

Alas, I could not tell her! I remembered my promise of eternal silence, made to her father before our marriage.

A cold muteness fell upon us both when I shook my head and did not answer her; it was the first time that the barrier of secrecy had arisen between us. The air of the room seemed cold as we sat there, though the sun shone brilliantly without. The fruits the nuns had placed before us at the end of our meal remained untouched.

"Coffee will be served to you on the terrace, monsieur and madame," announced our attendant nun, "it is the wish of Madame la Comtesse."

We arose silently, and went forth on to the sunlit terrace again, with its wealth of flowers and perfumed air. We walked without a word passing between us, and we came to the arbour in the shade overlooking a grand stretch of blue lake; here was the Comtesse, a table before her with coffee and liqueurs, amongst them a sparkling cut-glass decanter of yellow Chartreuse. A nun stood ready to pour out the coffee, the same that had written at the old lady's dictation and held her sunshade in the morning. She served us with our coffee, then with a low bow disappeared.

"Sister Therese," remarked the Comtesse, "is a great comfort to me; she writes all my letters and waits on me as if I were her mother."

At the word "mother" the old lady paused, and I saw her blue eyes fixed on a distant sail on the lake, with a sad, almost yearning look in them.

But in a moment it was gone. She turned to us, smiling.

"You must take a glass of Chartreuse," she said, filling the tiny glasses, "it is so good for you. It is a perfect elixir!"

We drank the liqueur more to please her than anything else; then Dolores rose. I have never seen such a look of pain on her sweet face as was there then. God send I never see such again!

"No doubt, Madame la Comtesse," she began, "you wish to speak to my husband alone?"

The old lady glanced up at her for a few moments without speaking, there was a slightly puzzled look in her kind blue eyes; then, in a second, this look was gone, and one of deep solicitude and affection took its place.

It was as if some expression or passing glance on my dear wife's face had touched a chord somewhere in her nature, perhaps long forgotten.

She put out her slender white hand and drew Dolores down beside her on to the bench on which she sat; then she put her arm round her and pressed her to her, as one fondles a child.

"My dear," she said, "between a husband and his wife there should be no secret. No secret of mine shall divide you two. What I tell to one, I tell to both. What does it matter? For myself, I shall soon be gone; for the others, what harm can it bring them?"

We sat in silence, she with her arm round Dolores, her eyes fixed on the blue lake, a tear trembling in each, and she spoke to us as one whose thoughts were far away among the people and the scenes she described. I sat enthralled by every word she uttered.

"My eyes first saw the light," she began, "in a castle among the mountains around Valoro, one of the seats of my father, the king!"

Though I started at her words, they did not amaze me; I was prepared for them.

"My mother died when I was ten," she continued. "How I remember her with her fair curls and blue eyes, they seemed so strange among the dark-skinned Aquazilians! Young though I was, the shock of her death was the most awful, I think, that I ever had, perhaps—save one. It was all the greater because I had no brother or sister to share my grief with me. Yet I loved my father very dearly; he was a good and great man, and much reverenced by his people. There was no talk of revolutions nor republics in those days; the people were content under a mild rule.

"The years went on, and I became a woman, nurtured in the magnificence of a rich palace, yet imbued with the fear of God, for my father was a good man, and had me well taught my faith. I grew up, I think, with the brightness of my dead mother's spirit pervading me, for I avoided many of the pitfalls of youth.

"My royal father, often taking my face between his hands, would look into my eyes, and thank God that I had not in me the wickedness of the Dolphbergs, the race from which we sprang. It was when I was three-and-twenty that a sudden chill, caught by my father when out hunting, produced a fever which robbed me of him, and I was left an orphan; an orphan queen to reign over a nation.

"I was my father's only child; there was no Salic law to bar me. But as the orphan is ever succoured by heaven, so was I in my lonely royal state upheld by the counsels of a good and great man.

"Your grandfather, my child," she continued turning to Dolores, "the old Don Silvio d'Alta.

"He had been my father's stay in all his troubles; the d'Altas were a race of diplomatists, and when death claimed him your father, Don Juan, took his place."

A soft look came into her eyes as she sat with Dolores' hand in hers, a far-away look; her thoughts were in the times she spoke of.

"Those were happy days, Dolores," she continued, "those first years when your father and I ruled the people of Aquazilia. I had had a reign of ten years when your grandfather died and young Don Juan took the reins of government as my adviser; no one ever thought of contesting his right to it. Was he not a d'Alta?

"He was but twenty-five and I barely nine years older when he became my chancellor, and those ten years of ruling should have taught me prudence as a queen had I but listened to Don Juan's counsels too. For I know he loved me, loved me far too well perhaps and above my deserts.

"Had I had the prudence of an honest milkmaid who guards her honour as by instinct, I might have reigned this day at Valoro, instead of being the victim of a villain who, creeping into my heart like the serpent into Eden, destroyed it with the fire of burning love, and left me only ashes."

* * * * *

"It was in the very first year of Don Juan's chancellorship that there came to Valoro the son of a Grand Duke of one of the German States; what brought him there I shall never know. He told me it was the sight of my face in a picture, and the 'glamour of my virgin court,' but I think rather it was the spirit of the adventurer, or the gamester, which seeks for gain and counts not the cost to others. The Prince of Rittersheim——"

"Rittersheim!" I exclaimed, interrupting her.

"Yes," she continued, "Adalbert, the eldest son of the Grand Duke of Rittersheim, he who succeeded his father two years later.

"The Prince was, I think, the handsomest man I have ever seen, and I think the wickedest. His tall fine presence, set off by a magnificent uniform, was seen at every Court I held. At every Court ball he claimed my hand for the first dance; as far as my lonely state allowed he sought me at every opportunity, and I, like a fool, was flattered by his attentions.

"Yes, to my sorrow, I began to love him.

"I had travelled but little; travelling was harder in those days; one tour in Europe with my father, that was all.

"I had fondly imagined that my suitor was a free, unmarried man. The first shock of his perfidy came when I learned he was not; but it came too late—I loved him.

"Don Juan told me, as he was bound in duty and honour to tell me from his position, that the Prince of Rittersheim was already married, but was separated from his wife.

"At the very next opportunity I had of speaking to the Prince—it was in a secluded part of the palace gardens, and the meetings were connived at by one of my ladies, the Baroness of Altenstein—I asked him plainly if he were married.

"This was apparently the opportunity he had been waiting for; he threw himself at my feet, and in passionate terms declared his love for me.

"He had loved me from the first moment that he had seen my portrait, he had loved me ten times more since he had seen the original.

"I stayed the torrent of his words and reminded him that he was married.

"Yes, he admitted he was married in name, but his marriage was no marriage; he had separated from his wife by the direction of the Grand Duke, his father—in this he spoke the truth, but the reason was far different—his so-called marriage was soon to be set aside as null and void, he told me.

"'Then come back to me when you are free,' I answered, 'and I will listen to you if the Church permits,' for I knew he was not of my Faith, and the German States treated marriage lightly. My answer only caused him to redouble his entreaties; he begged me not to drive him from me, he could not live away from my presence, and I, poor fool, looking down at his handsome face and graceful person, and loving him with my whole heart, believed him.

"I know not how it came about, but I found myself sitting on a seat in that secluded corner of my garden with the Prince beside me with his arms around me, whilst my lady-in-waiting, the Baroness d'Altenstein, had discreetly wandered off out of earshot, but still with a keen eye that no one should disturb us.

"I never can account for it, I never can understand how it was I listened to him. I suppose it was the hot bad blood of the Dolphbergs which lurked in my veins and urged me, for I loved with all the passion of my race then; loved as a woman over thirty loves who has never loved before.

"Sitting on that rustic seat with him, whilst the cool evening wind played about us, I listened to a scheme he unfolded to me. He said he loved me to such distraction that he could not leave me, it would kill him; he could not wait until his marriage was set aside. He swore that he believed himself conscience free to marry, and swore a great oath that nothing should ever part him from me.

"In soft, loving whispers, he proposed that we should be married secretly; he had a priest all ready willing to perform the ceremony.

"Then he would be sure of me and could live content.

"In a few months his former alliance would be set aside; before all the world we could be married again. A grand state ceremony if I would have it so.

"I listened to him, and my heart beat high as he spoke, yet I doubted in my saner moments whether I should ever be permitted to marry him by my ministers and my people were he free that very day.

"Poor fool that I was, he bent me to his will within a week, and he had no greater advocate for his cause than the Baroness d'Altenstein, my lady, though, poor soul, she only meant me well. But she was romantic, and had not long been married to a man she loved, a courtier from the country of the Dolphbergs; she had spent her honeymoon in their capital, and was an advocate for love at any price.

"Knowing I loved the Prince of Rittersheim, she worked only to make me happy by a marriage with him.

"With her knowledge only, I slipped away from Court for a week and went through a ceremony of marriage with the Prince at a little village church hidden away in the mountains a hundred miles from Valoro.

"I married him in the dress and under the name of a simple peasant woman, not knowing—as he did—that such a ceremony was utterly null and void.

"Was I happy? I think he loved me then—a little." A soft, sad look overspread the sweet old face; she gazed away across the lake in silence for a few moments. It seemed that, even after all these years, that time of love and falseness held some tender recollection still.

She came, as it were, to herself almost directly, and heaving a great sigh, went on—

"Long before the week was ended, the Prince had told me I must return to the Court, and take my place there as before.

"Of course I protested, and begged him to even then make our marriage public; that I would give up the throne. Had I not a great fortune left me by my father?

"Yes, that was the point that touched him, the great fortune. The treasures of my late father were immense. Besides an enormous fortune in money, mostly invested prudently in Europe, he possessed some of the most valuable diamonds in the world. It had been his diversion to collect them; he believed that they were always a most valuable security, likely to increase in value, and therefore he did not grudge the money sunk in them. The most valuable, reckoned to be worth a million English pounds, were stored in a safe of special construction made of steel. They were apart from the Crown Jewels, and were never worn. Indeed most of them were unset. My father's theory was that they were of immense value and could be carried in a small compass in case of necessity.

"The Prince, of course, knew from me full well of these treasures, and I firmly believe hungered for their possession from the very moment he learned from my foolish lips of their existence. He forced me at the end of the few days' honeymoon to return to the Court, and then from that time forth I saw him only surreptitiously with the aid of d'Altenstein, who was the aider and abettor of it all, yet loving me, and working only, as she thought, poor soul, for my happiness.

"I was soon undeceived in my Prince. I soon learned that he was in sore straits for money, and that he intended to get it from me.

"I gave him all I could, but he was insatiable. Finally he would come to me drunk and strike me when I could not meet his demands for thousands upon thousands.

"It was then that in my desperation, when I knew I was to be a mother soon, I confided all to Don Juan d'Alta, and by so doing perhaps saved my life and my child's."



CHAPTER XXIII

THE QUEEN'S ATONEMENT

"Yes, but for the intervention of Don Juan d'Alta, my Chancellor at that time," continued the old lady, "my life might have ended in despair.

"From the very first, although he did not tell me so then, he saw that I had been simply exploited by this heartless and unprincipled scoundrel, Prince Adalbert of Rittersheim. But your father," she proceeded, turning to Dolores and placing her hand on hers, "your father, my dear, by his self-sacrifice and the pure affection which he bore me, saved me.

"He realised that he had to do with a villain whose object was plunder, and who at that time dominated the situation. He foresaw that a liberal outlay of money was the only thing that would rid me of this fiend. He went to Prince Adalbert and simply asked him his price.

"He named at first an exorbitant sum, and the diamonds of my late father contained in the steel safe.

"This was refused. Don Juan at last brought him to his knees by defying him and telling him to do his worst.

"Then he agreed to a yearly pension of one hundred thousand dollars, which would be paid to him on condition that he left me unmolested.

"He made a fight for the custody of the child which was coming, as I doubt not he thought that he could have a greater hold over me if he had it, but this request was flatly refused, and he sailed away from Aquazilia the richer by a great income, but bought at the price of a loving woman's happiness."

The old queen stopped and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Do not go on, your Majesty," urged Dolores, half dazed at the disclosures; "you distress yourself."

The old lady brightened at once and pressed her hand, putting away her handkerchief.

"No," she answered; "I prefer to tell you all and now.

"By the aid of Don Juan and the Baroness d'Altenstein, who was broken down with grief at the course affairs had taken, my condition was concealed, and arrangements were made for my accouchement under circumstances of the greatest secrecy. Don Juan had abandoned all hope from the outset of legitimatising the child; his one object was to conceal my shame. This he succeeded in doing. I gave birth to a boy, and my love for him has been the great solace of my life."

"And he is living, madame?" I ventured to ask.

"Yes, living," she answered, the sweet smile playing about her lips again—"living, and the greatest comfort God has given me in my trials.

"From his babyhood he was the one thought I had; his training, his education, the fostering of good in his receptive mind that he might grow up a good man. And he has repaid me a thousandfold.

"But in those years great troubles came upon me. Prince Adalbert, known as one of the greatest roues and spendthrifts in Europe, had succeeded his father two years after he left me, and was now Grand Duke. His first wife had been taken back again—or he never could have faced his people—and had borne him a son. This son was fated to be the scourge of my life hereafter.

"Meanwhile, in the throes of a continental war, the Grand Duchy of Rittersheim was absorbed into the neighbouring great state, and the Grand Duke Adalbert, deposed and impoverished, became simply a pensioner, and a most importunate blackmailer of myself.

"His one great object in life—and later he confided this secret, with the story of our marriage, to his son—was to obtain possession of the great fortune in diamonds, still locked in the steel safe bequeathed me by my father, and which I had steadfastly refused to part with, nay, even to withdraw a single stone from.

"But the value had, in the drink-distorted mind of the Grand Duke Adalbert, become immensely exaggerated. The safe was believed by his son Waldemar to contain diamonds to the value of five millions of English pounds!"

Hence his intense rapacity in later years; for when my boy was twenty-five his father, the Grand Duke Adalbert, died, and was succeeded in the title only, for the power was gone, by his son Waldemar, but two years younger than my own.

"This Waldemar appears to have been evilly disposed from boyhood, and embittered against mankind in general, first by the loss of his Duchy, and in addition by the destruction of an eye which he suffered in some low fracas, for his delight was to mingle and drink with the lowest of mankind. On his father's death he came to Valoro and demanded that the pension paid to the late Duke by me should be continued to him!

"This was refused.

"Then he had the impudence to try and bargain with me, offering to keep silence for a certain sum. Finally he laid claim to the diamonds in the steel safe, which he stated were his father's property. My answer to his requests and fraudulent claims was to have him placed on board a steamer bound for Europe.

"Then he threatened me with his life-long vengeance. Leagued with a professional agitator named Razzaro, he commenced to undermine my authority with great subtilty, till in the end my simple people who once had loved me and my family grew to hate me, and to look upon Waldemar, even the Royalists, as a much-wronged person.

"You know the rest; it is written in the history of the world. My people rose in rebellion. I was dethroned, and with one single faithful companion, the Baroness d'Altenstein, fled to Europe in the warship of a friendly nation.

"But before the storm burst I had sent to Europe the steel safe and its precious contents, the diamonds.

"For some reasons, I have many times since wished that it had sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic.

"For years I lived in one of the fairest cities of Europe with my faithful d'Altenstein, and for those years the Duke Waldemar left me in peace, being, I suppose, occupied in some other villainy.

"But suddenly he commenced his importunities again, and made one dastardly attempt, through others, to steal the safe from the bankers' vaults in which it lay, but this was frustrated.

"Harried to death by his persecution, I consulted a learned English judge whom I met in Society in Paris, Sir Henry Anstruther, your father," she added, turning to me, "and it has always seemed to me a providential coincidence that in my need I should also have turned to you.

"I asked this good English judge, without disclosing my secret, what he considered the most effectual mode for a woman to adopt to hide herself entirely from the world and her friends. I said I was very curious to know what his long experience had taught him in that respect.

"He seemed amused at my question, and thought for some time before replying, little guessing what was running in my mind. He answered me at last, and said that he thought that a person could be best hidden and lost to the world by living just a fairly ordinary life in a quiet way in one of the larger towns in England. That was his experience during his long life as a lawyer.

"I treasured his opinion, and formed a scheme in my mind upon it.

"Just then poor Carlotta d'Altenstein, a widow without friends, my dear companion, was seized with her mortal illness, and then I saw my scheme complete before me.

"By the lavish use of money, of which I had more than I needed by far, for my father's private fortune invested in Europe was very great, I contrived that I should change places with the Baroness d'Altenstein.

"To the public it was I who was ill; to the world at large, even to Don Juan, it was I who died. It was then that, passing as the Baroness d'Altenstein—in England as plain Mrs. Carlotta Altenstein—I went to the city of Bath, which had been recommended, and also offered certain devotional advantages to me, for I intended to give the remainder of my life to religion and the poor.

"There in Monmouth Street, where you saw me, Mr. Anstruther, amusing myself with philanthropic literature, I succeeded for ten years in hiding myself from the Duke Waldemar of Rittersheim, who had in a manner reformed himself and become a philanthropist too, in public; in secret his life was worse than ever. In that little room in which you found me, I was foolish enough to keep the steel safe, hidden away in a receptacle cut in the stone wall of the house. But the safe no longer contained all the diamonds. I had been gradually selling them and devoting the proceeds to the poor of the world. This convent, a refuge for aged men and women, and orphaned children, was founded with part of the money.

"But to my horror, at the end of the ten years, I met the Duke Waldemar, face to face, coming out of the Pump Room at Bath, where quietly and unobtrusively I had gone to take the waters. That was on the morning of the day I spoke to you, for I knew then that my refuge was a refuge no longer.

"I intended on the morrow to have asked you to help me remove what remained of the diamonds to a place of security and leave the safe behind. Perhaps I might have even encroached on your kindness to have asked you to escort me here, but it was arranged otherwise.

"During the night and early morning, I became aware that something was taking place in the next house, which up to then had stood empty. I connected it in my mind with some plot of the Duke, who I doubted not had had me followed home. The sequel proved I was right.

"This fear so worked upon me that, towards morning, I rose and commenced to write the letters to you and Don Juan, and to make them up in packets.

"The letter to the latter, in which I told him I should come here if I lived, of course I placed in the ebony casket with something else that was worth more to me than all the diamonds in the world; it was the certificate of my marriage to Prince Adalbert of Rittersheim at the little church of the remote mountain village in Aquazilia.

"I was far more fearful of losing that than all my fortune. It was the certificate of my honour and my son's birthright. I knew that if the Duke Waldemar once got it into his possession he could demand any price from me for its return.

"It was late in the morning, a dull foggy November morning, when I had finished sealing the packets and locked them away in the steel safe with my own key. The one I had given you was the only duplicate in existence; they both bore my father's initial C, he was Carlo the Third of Aquazilia.

"Having left directions on a paper which you could see within the safe when you opened it, I carefully locked it and hid my own key under a special place in the carpet.

"I intended then to write to you at once and tell you to come and open the safe, whatever might happen to me, for I believed that its hiding-place would not easily be discovered, but I never had this chance.

"Exhausted with want of sleep, I went back to my room and threw myself on my bed, half dressed as I was, with my white silk dressing-robe on in which I had sat writing half the night.

"I at once fell asleep and must have slept for hours, for it was dark again when I awoke, and then I was called back to consciousness by having my arm roughly shaken. I found the Duke Waldemar and two other men in my room.

"He at once demanded to know the whereabouts of the steel safe with the diamonds, and held a naked knife to my throat to force me to tell him.

"Life was of very little value to me in comparison with the needs of the poor for whom I was determined to preserve the riches.

"Each time I refused to tell him he pressed the knife closer to my throat, until it cut into the flesh, and I felt the warm blood trickling down on to my white dressing-robe.

"When he and his companions had been there it seemed to me a long, long time, and it was useless for me to shriek for help, I gave myself up for lost, turning my thoughts as well as I could to the next world.

"It was then that the Duke and his men were startled by hearing you open the front door of the house and stumble through the dark passage.

"With horrible curses they fled through the window.

"Then you came, and I had just the strength left to whisper to you to open the safe when I fainted away.

"I have no recollection of what occurred after. Many hours must have elapsed before I regained consciousness, and then I came to myself in an underground room of what I knew after to be a lonely tower on the hills near Bath."

"What, not Cruft's Folly?" I suggested.

"Yes," she replied thoughtfully; "I believe that was the name I afterwards learned was given to the place.

"I was waited on by a German woman, the wife of one of the Duke's followers, a big dark man with a black beard.

"My dress, my bed, and general surroundings were those of a poor country woman.

"But this black-bearded German and his wife were the means of saving me.

"There had been an accident, a man had fallen off the tower and been killed.

"The big dark man and his wife were terribly frightened, and in this state could not withstand the temptation of the big bribe I promised them if they would obtain my release.

"They brought a country cart to the tower, full of straw, as soon as it was dusk on the day of the accident, and in this I was driven to Devizes. From there I telegraphed to my bankers and they sent a special messenger to me with an abundance of money and a new cheque-book; from that time forth I was my own mistress again.

"The wound in my neck, which was only skin deep, had been carefully bandaged by the German woman; under the hands of a skilled doctor and nurse, it soon healed.

"I have very little doubt but that the Duke intended to keep me a prisoner in the tower until I disclosed the whereabouts of the diamonds.

"The big German who had arranged my escape—and to whom I gave five hundred pounds—told me that a grave had already been dug to receive my body in the old graveyard behind the house in Monmouth Street.

"Had the Duke discovered the diamonds, I should have been murdered to save further trouble from me; he knew, of course, I was already dead to the world. As it was, they only buried my bloodstained bed-linen in the grave when they carried me off from the house, after you had left the Duke stunned."

I could have told the old Queen that the big German did not long enjoy her five hundred pounds, but that he himself filled the grave intended for her, and which, probably, he had helped to dig. I did not tell her this, she had had trouble enough; but I had little doubt that the Duke had discovered that the man had played him false, and had shot him and disposed of his body in that way.

Queen Inez paused, and passed her frail white hand across her eyes.

"I have told you all now, I think," she said slowly, for she was fatigued. "When I was well enough I came here and found a telegram from Don Juan. I knew you had delivered the casket. Here I have remained; here I shall, if it be God's will, remain to the end."

Seeing that the long relation had tired her, I leant forward and filled one of the little liqueur glasses with the golden Chartreuse and handed it to her. She took it from me with a smile, and insisted that we should take some too. We sat sipping the delicious liqueur in silence, our gaze fixed on the blue lake and the white sails slowly moving in the stillness of the afternoon heat.

As I saw the colour returning to the Queen's face, I ventured to ask her another question.

"There is one person, madame," I said, "who's history you have not yet thought fit to tell us. Forgive me if I am presumptuous in asking the question. It is your son I speak of."

A very sweet smile came over her face as I ceased speaking. She glanced, it appeared involuntarily, at the sparkling liqueur in her little glass.

"My dear son's history is soon told," she said, still smiling. "He has been a Carthusian monk, a Trappist, since his youth. He never had the least inclination for the life of the world. He is the abbot of the monastery of San Juan del Monte, near Valoro."

Then I recollected his fair face, and blue eyes, and remembered that he had reminded me of some one; now I knew who that some one was—his mother. It was plain to me why Don Juan had taken us there.

"Every year," continued Queen Inez, "by the special permission of the head of his order, he comes to me and stays ten days. Those are, to me, ten days stolen from heaven. Thank God, he comes next month, and each time he comes," she added, with a smile, raising her little glass, "he brings me a present from his monastery of the veritable Chartreuse."

We lingered with the dear old Queen until the sun was declining over the lake, whose waters were turning a darker blue; the sister came with wraps and a warning glance to take her to her rooms in the convent.

At her request, during our short stay at Lucerne, we visited her again and again, until the day of parting came, and we bade her farewell on the terrace where we had first met her, above the blue waters of the lake.

There were tears in her eyes and ours when we left her, and the tears came back again to ours as we looked wistfully up at the terrace as Fritz rowed us away, and we saw her waving to us no longer.

That was the last we saw of her, or shall ever see in this world, for six months after we received a letter from the Reverend Mother telling us that "Madame la Comtesse" was dead, and Dolores and I, remembering her sufferings, her patience, and her great love, are presumptuous enough to think that heaven has gained another saint.

* * * * *

No, neither Ethel nor St. Nivel are married yet, but I would not say that they never will be. I have heard rumours of a Guardsman on the one hand, and a sweet Irish girl on the other.

At any rate, during those happy autumn weeks which Dolores and I invariably spend at dear old Bannington in the shooting season, if, by any chance, Ethel and I meet in the gloaming in the long, oak-panelled corridors, we indulge in no more cousinly kisses; she won't.

THE END