would be at Miramar, at beautiful Miramar, overlooking the sea, where
Charlotte awaited him, but knew it not. And by love and tender care he
would coax her back to sanity. Ah, no, the pure joy of living was not
done for them yet!

"Desire Father Augustin to attend me in my private cabinet," he said to
the first lackey.

The huge priest came on the instant. He bore a candle in one fat,
freckled hand, and above its light the dull flesh of his face shone
yellow. His head was as ever pear-shaped with its heavy, flabby jowls,
and in the apex the two little beads of eyes leaped adventurously at
sight of the prince.

"I am here, sire," he said purringly. "Your Majesty, then, wishes me to
prepare for his return to the imperial palace to-morrow?"

"No, father," His Majesty answered stoutly, though not without an uneasy
glance. "To-morrow I set out for the coast. The _Dandolo_ is still
there at anchor. You will give the necessary orders to my Hungarians,
who will be my escort."

Fischer opened his lips, to close them. The involuntary creasing of his
brow smoothed at once. Maximilian, who had dreaded argument from this
man, breathed easier. But of course any man would give way when a
Hapsburg had irrevocably made up his mind. The padre laid down the
candle, and interlaced his bloated fingers over his paunch in an
attitude of sleek calmness. He was smiling and fawned meek anxiety to
second his patron's least wish.

"Your Imperial Majesty's wisdom, I see, is not a thing to be turned by
the fraeulein?"

"On the contrary, Mademoiselle la Marquise d'Aumerle counseled my
departure, not my remaining."

The fingers tightened slightly over the bulge of the sutane. "She then
presumed to differ from Her Serene Highness, Your Majesty's mother?"

"My mother would counsel the same, were she in Mexico. I thank you,
padre, that I went to see the only one who could so take my mother's
place, because now, at last, I know what I must do."

The priest took a long breath, and drew back, mentally, to some vantage
point whence he could survey the field and plan his campaign anew. He
nodded humble acquiescence, but the small bright eyes seemed to gorge
themselves on the prince. Maximilian stirred restively. One has seen a
lion watch the trainer's whip, as though he wondered that a creature
with only a whip should yet, in some way, compel him to do this or that.
Before an obscure adventurer the monarch hastened to justify his
abdication. But