loss of a Crown!'

'Mr. Camminy will probably appear at the dinner hour,' said Caroline.

'Claret attracts him: I wish I could say as much of duty,' rejoined her
uncle.

Patrick managed to restrain a bubbling remark on the respective charms of
claret and duty, tempting though the occasion was for him to throw in a
conversational word or two.

He was rewarded for listening devoutly.

Mr. Adister burst out again: 'And why not come over here to settle this
transaction herself?--provided that I am spared the presence of her
Schinderhannes! She could very well come. I have now received three
letters bearing on this matter within as many months. Down to the sale of
her hereditary jewels! I profess no astonishment. The jewels may well go
too, if Crydney and Welvas are to go. Disrooted body and soul!--for a
moonshine title!--a gaming-table foreign knave!--Known for a knave!--A
young gentlewoman?--a wild Welsh . . . !'

Caroline put her horse to a canter, and the exclamations ended, leaving
Patrick to shuffle them together and read the riddle they presented, and
toss them to the wind, that they might be blown back on him by the powers
of air in an intelligible form.

CHAPTER IV

THE PRINCESS

Dinner, and a little piano-music and a song closed an evening that was
not dull to Patrick in spite of prolonged silences. The quiet course of
things within the house appeared to him to have a listening ear for big
events outside. He dreaded a single step in the wrong direction, and
therefore forbore to hang on any of his conjectures; for he might
perchance be unjust to the blessedest heroine on the surface of the
earth--a truly awful thought! Yet her name would no longer bear the
speaking of it to himself. It conjured up a smoky moon under confounding
eclipse.

Who was Schinderhannes?

Mr. Adister had said, her Schinderhannes.

Patrick merely wished to be informed who the man was, and whether he had
a title, and was much of a knave: and particularly Patrick would have
liked to be informed of the fellow's religion. But asking was not easy.

It was not possible. And there was a barrel of powder to lay a fiery head
on, for a pillow!

To confess that he had not the courage to inquire was as good as an
acknowledgment that he knew too much for an innocent questioner. And what
did he know? His brother Philip's fair angel forbade him to open the door
upon what he knew. He took a peep through fancy's keyhole, and delighted