wife?" he questioned, and Celio could only stammer, "She has gone
out for a drive; she will be back presently."

"Did she not receive my letter?" and the Prince had his answer, for it
lay with broken seal upon her escritoire.

"Did she go to meet me? Have we missed each other?" he asked.

"Not so, your Highness," Pippa Serbonella interpolated, "the Princess
had another appointment," and again with significant finger and hateful
smile she pointed to the smoke signal. The Prince stood transfixed, and
Celio understood from their two faces that the girl had given
unsolicited full reports of that correspondence written in the air. "Oh!
you women, you women!" he groaned, and "I will strangle you, traitress,"
he whispered as she passed him.

But the Prince had other occupation for him at that moment. "Now tell
the whole truth," he commanded sternly, and the secretary told it,
exulting that against her will the malicious maid-of-honour must confirm
his statement that while the Princess had been supposed to be at Naples
she was really with Napoleon at Elba.

A look of relief smoothed Borghese's forehead for an instant. "I never
doubted my wife," he declared proudly, "nevertheless the King of Naples
has certain explanations to make to me. Celio there was in that cabinet
a case of pistols which the Emperor gave me."

"The Princess took them with her this morning," Pippa vouchsafed
officiously.

"Ah!" the Prince drew in his breath. "It is of no consequence," he
added. "General Murat will require but one and will doubtless lend me
the other. Quick, Celio, our horses. The Princess has only an hour the
start of us. We will overtake them at Mondragone."

They passed her in fact at Frascati where they saw her carriage standing
unharnessed before the inn. "She is resting," said the Prince, "we will
not disturb her until after our business at Mondragone is finished."

At the gate an astonished servant took their horses, and as the Prince
walked through the shady cypress avenue his brain cooled and he formed a
resolution differing from the one that had brought him to the villa.
Upon the fountain terrace they saw the man they had come to seek. Not
the galliard of his last visit, but a hunted refugee, his gaudy hussar
uniform soiled and torn, the ballas ruby which had buckled his aigrette
shot from his hat, and a tiny rill of blood trickling from his matted
hair upon the golden bees that ornamented the sky-blue velvet tunic.
Stret