his breath. "If you were a young man I would kill
you for that," he said.

"I know you would. As it is, my life is yours. But before you take it,
for God's sake, for your father's sake, hear me out."

Leopold did not speak for a moment, but stared at the vanishing
landscape, which he saw through a red haze. "Very well," he said at
last, "I will hear you, because I fear nothing you can say."

"When I heard of your Majesty's--admiration for a certain lady," the
Chancellor began quickly, lest the Emperor should change his mind, "I
looked for her name and her mother's in Burke's Peerage. There I found
Lady Mowbray, widow of a dead Baron of that ilk; mother of a son,
still a child, and of one daughter, a young woman with many names and
twenty-eight years.

"This surprised me, as the Miss Mowbray I had seen at the birthday
ball looked no more than eighteen, and--I was told--confessed to
twenty. The Mowbrays, I learned by a little further research in
Burke, were distantly connected by marriage with the family of
Baumenburg-Drippe. This seemed an odd coincidence, in the circumstances.
But acting as duty bade me act, I wired to two persons: Baron von Sark,
your Majesty's ambassador to Great Britain; and the Crown Prince of
Hungaria, the brother of Princess Virginia."

"What did you telegraph?" asked the Emperor, icily.

"Nothing compromising to your Majesty, you may well believe. I
inquired of Adalbert if he had English relations, a Lady Mowbray and
daughter Helen, traveling in Rhaetia; and I begged that, if so, he
would describe their appearance by telegram. To von Sark I said that
particulars by wire concerning the widow of Lord Mowbray and daughter
Helen, would put me under personal obligation. Both these messages I
sent off night before last. Yesterday I received Adalbert's answer;
this morning, von Sark's. They are here," and the Chancellor tapped
the breast of his gray coat. "Will your Majesty read them?"

"If you wish," replied Leopold at his haughtiest and coldest.

The old man unbuttoned his coat and produced a coroneted pocket-book,
a souvenir of friendship on his last birthday from the Emperor.
Leopold saw it, and remembered, as the Chancellor hoped he would.

"Here are the telegrams, your Majesty," he said. "The first one is
from the Crown Prince of Hungaria."

"Have no idea where Lady Mowbray and daughter are traveling; may be
Rhaetia or North Pole," Adalbert had written with characteristic
flippancy. "