nt----'

Sagan stood gasping and staring. His passion seemed to choke him as he
stood, but the Duke, still exalted by the sense of triumph and power,
mistook the silence for speechless humiliation. His temper rose as the
other's seemed to sink.

'You can deceive me no more, my lord Sagan!' he cried in a high excited
voice. 'You took Colendorp from me, you would now take Rallywood, one
by one all my faithful Guard! But I am sovereign still! You shall not
tamper any longer with my loyal State; you shall never bring your
traitorous German schemes to an issue!'

But there were things impossible for Count Simon of Sagan to endure.
Never before had he been twitted with impotence and failure. He could
not survive so utter a defeat. A man to bear these things must be less
thorough than the Count. He was too fierce, too imperious, to bear so
great a reverse. If he must be put to shame before the world, if even a
paltry captain of the Guard were to be permitted to negative his will,
why then life had best be over!

He seemed to struggle for speech; at last, without warning, his passion
leaped into flame. Like a wild beast he sprang across the table at the
Duke--the poor snivelling coward who had dared to flay him with his
tongue! The old hate fired the new fury as he clutched Gustave.

The Duke gave a shrill feeble cry, not such a cry as one would have
expected from a man of his age, and then Selpdorf was between them
shouting for the Guard.

'You false hound!' Sagan gnashed his teeth in Selpdorf's face as the
Chancellor threw himself upon him.

Shouts and shots, and the wild turmoil of a deadly struggle. Then the
Guard had secured Sagan. The Duke stood trembling and incoherent,
leaning upon the table, and between them, face downwards on the floor,
the Chancellor with a bullet in his groin and for once playing a _role_
he had not prepared.

Sagacious, supple, self-seeking, yet not utterly seared, in the last
resort he offered up his life for the master he had almost betrayed.

CHAPTER XXXII.

FOR A SEASON.

Queens Fain lies upon the inner edge of Lincolnshire, in an undulating
countryside amongst great old trees, where of an evening the sun throws
bars of light across the levels of turf, where homing rooks fly in
scattered lines against a gleaming sky, the air breathes coolness and
peace, and the scene lays that ineffable spell upon the heart of which
only the exile can ever know the full pathetic power.