ray you--should have warned
your husband and have gone so far _as to fetch the King to waylay you
and stop your flight_!"

But Carmen-Magda only laughed, and dismissed the ridiculous supposition
with a word of disbelief.

"Tell me," Bulstrode urged, "tell me what would you think?"

She drew herself up haughtily at his insistence as if his hypothesis
were real to her at last:

"He would be the most despicable traitor in the world."

Bulstrode pursued: "What--would you think of Gresthaven--if in order to
save you, to give you time, time to think, to reflect, to perhaps alter
your decision--he had used other means less cruel possibly, but as
surely betraying your good faith?"

Here she looked keenly through him--read him--then waited a second
before intensely exclaiming:

"Gresthaven--_what have you done_?"

His heart came into his throat and his voice nearly failed him. He did
not know Poltavians nor the queenly temper, nor did he know how all
women take any one given thing, but he knew how women the world over
admit of no change of caprice saving that variability which arises in
their own minds.

"Oh, dear," he thought, "if for no matter _what_ reason, she had only
changed her _own_ mind!"

"In five minutes," he said bravely--"your Majesty will be at Westboro'
Abbey station, our carriage has been attached to the other train which
followed us from London."

With a smothered cry the Queen sprang to her feet, rushed to the window
and stared out where nothing in the golden afternoon beauty revealed to
her in what part of England she was. Bulstrode had put his hand out
before her as if he feared she meditated climbing through the open
window.

"Oh," she cried furiously, shrinking back from him, "how have you dared
... dared?"

... "To save your Majesty? Well, it _was_ hard!" he acknowledged
practically. "Harder than you will ever believe. I may say that no
decision was ever more difficult to make. To be so trusted by you, and
to feel myself a double-dyed villain wasn't agreeable, but the issue
was a warrant for any treachery."

"Great heavens!" she exclaimed. "Who made _you_ judge of my actions,
who gave _you_ leave to decide my fate, what a fool I was to trust
you--what a fool! You have spoiled my life!" she accused him--"You
have taken from me everything in the world."

If she had been alone he knew she would have wept, and he kept his face
turned from her for some few seconds. "I have certainl