of
honour of the Austrian bride were drawn up and presented arms as the
empress drove in. The Archduchess Eudoxie was awaiting the empress.

"How is Valerie?" Elizabeth at once asked.

"Better, calmer," replied the archduchess. "Much better than I dared
hope. But she will receive no one...."

"Do send to ask whether I can see her...."

The archduchess' lady-in-waiting left the room: she returned with the
message that her imperial highness was expecting the empress.

Elizabeth found Valerie lying on a sofa, wearing a white lace tea-gown,
looking very pale, with great, dark, dull eyes; she rose, however:

"Forgive me, ma'am," she said, in apology.

Elizabeth embraced her with great tenderness; the archduchess added:

"I was not well, I felt so tired...."

But then her eyes met Elizabeth's and she saw that the empress did not
expect her to exhibit superhuman endurance. She nestled up against her
and cried softly, as one cries who has already wept long and
passionately and is now exhausted with weeping and has not the strength
to weep except very, very softly. The empress made her sit down, sat
down beside her and caressed her with a soothing movement of her hand.
Neither of the two spoke; neither of the two found words in the
difficult relation which at that moment they bore one to the other.

Two days ago, the day before that fixed for the bride's journey to
Altara, the news had arrived that Prince von Lohe-Obkowitz had shot
himself in Paris. The actual reason of this suicide was not known. Some
thought that the prince had taken much to heart the disfavour of the
Emperor of Austria and the quarrel with his own family; others that he
had lost a fortune at baccarat and that his ruin was completed by the
bohemian extravagance of his wife, the notorious Estelle Desvaux, who
herself had been ruined more than once in her life, but had always
retrieved her position by means of a theatrical tour and the sale of a
few diamonds. Others again maintained that Prince Lohe had never been
able to forget his love for the future Duchess of Xara. But, whatever
might be suggested in Viennese court-circles, nothing was known for
certain. Valerie had by accident read the report, which they had tried
to conceal from her, in the same newspaper in which, now almost a year
ago, she had, also by accident, on the terrace at Altseeborgen, read the
news of Prince Lohe's proposed marriage and surrender of his rights. Her
soul, which had no