diately Pembroke and I journeyed to the feudal inn. When we
arrived a mixture of rain and snow was falling. But I laughed at that.
What if I were drenched to the skin with chill rain and snow, my heart
was warm, warmer than it had been in many a day. Woman is infallible
when she reads the heart of another. Phyllis said that Gretchen loved
me; it only remained for me to find her. Pembroke began to grumble.

"I am wet through," he said, as our steaming horses plodded along in
the melting snow. "You might have waited till the rain let up."

"I'm just as wet as you are," I replied, "but I do not care."

"I'm hungry and cold, too," he went on.

"I'm not, so it doesn't matter."

"Of course not!" he cried. "What are my troubles to you?"

"Nothing!" I laughed and shook the flakes from my sleeves. "Cousin, I
am the happiest man in the world."

"And I'm the most dismal," said he. "I wish you had brought along an
umbrella."

"What! Ride a horse with an umbrella over you? Where is your sense of
romance?"

"Romance is all well enough," said he, "when your stomach is full and
your hide is dry. If you can call this romance, this five-mile ride
through rain and snow, you are gifted with a wonderful imagination."

"It is beautiful here in the summer," defensively.

"I wish you had waited till then, or brought a mackintosh. Your
Princess would have kept." He shoved his head deeper into his collar,
and began to laugh. "This is the discomfort man will go through for
love. If she is a true woman she will feed you first and explain
afterward. But, supposing she is not here?"

"Where else can she be?" I asked.

"The world is very large--when a woman runs away from you."

This set me thinking. If she shouldn't be there! I set my teeth and
gave the horse a cut, sending him into a gallop, which I forced him to
maintain till the end. At length we turned into the roadway. A man I
had never seen before came out.

"Where is the innkeeper?" I asked, my heart sinking.

"He is not here," was the answer,

"Is Her Highness the Princess Hildegarde--"

"Her Highness?" he cried, in astonishment. "She has never been here.
This is an inn; the castle is in the village."

"How long have you been here?" asked Pembroke.

"Two weeks, Your Highness." Doubtless he thought us to be high
personages to be inquiring for the Princess.

"Is Stahlberg here?" I asked.

"He is visiting relatives in Coberg," was the answer.