ake it harder with torture which you think is
kindness? Listen to me. Next week I am to give my answer. He will be
here, in this castle. My father brought this calamity upon Graustark; I
must lift it from the people. What has my happiness to do with it?"

Her sudden strength silenced him, crushed him with the real awakening
of helplessness. He stood beside her, looking up at the cold monastery,
strangely conscious that she was gazing toward the same dizzy height.

"It looks so peaceful up there," she said at last.

"But so cold and cheerless," he added, drearily. There was another long
silence in which two hearts communed through the medium of that faraway
sentinel. "They have not discovered a clue to the chief abductor, have
they?" he asked, in an effort to return to his proper sphere.

"Baron Dangloss believes he has a clue--a meager and unsatisfactory
one, he admits--and to-day sent officers to Ganlook to investigate
the actions of a strange man who was there last week, a man who styled
himself the Count of Arabazon, and who claimed to be of Vienna. Some
Austrians had been hunting stags and bears in the north, however, and it
is possible he is one of them." She spoke slowly, her eyes still bent on
the home of the monks.

"Your highness, I have a theory, a bold and perhaps a criminal theory,
but you will allow me to tell you why I am possessed of it. I am aware
that there is a Prince Gabriel. It is my opinion that no Viennese is
guilty, nor are the brigands to be accused of this masterpiece in crime.
Have you thought how far a man may go to obtain his heart's desire?"

She looked at him instantly, her eyes wide with growing comprehension,
the solution to the mystery darting into her mind like a flash.

"You mean--" she began, stopping as if afraid to voice the suspicion.

"That Prince Gabriel is the man who bought your guards and hired Geddos
and Ostrom to carry you to the place where he could own you, whether you
would or no," said Lorry.

"But he could never have forced me to marry him, and I should, sooner or
later, have exposed him," she whispered, argumentatively. "He could
not expect me to be silent and submit to a marriage under such
circumstances. He knows that I would denounce him, even at the altar."

"You do not appreciate my estimate of that gentleman."

"What is to become of me!" she almost sobbed, in an anguish of fear. "I
see now--I see plainly! It was Gabriel, and he would have done as you
s