hours since
the message by telephone, to change the Chancellor's mind.

"Yes, your Majesty," came the prompt response. "Now for the hunting
lodge in the woods. I am ready to go with you there--as I always have
been, and always shall be ready to serve you when I am needed."

It was on Leopold's tongue to say, that it would be well if his
Chancellor's readiness could be confined to those occasions when it
was needed; but he shut his lips upon the words, and walked by the old
man's side in frozen silence.

The carriage was waiting just outside the station, and the moment the
two men were seated, the chauffeur started, noiselessly and swiftly.

Both windows were closed, to keep out the chill of the night air, but
soon Leopold impatiently lowered one, forgetting the Chancellor's
old-fashioned hatred of draughts, and stared into the night. Already
they were approaching the outskirts of the great town, and flying
past the dark warehouses and factories of the neighborhood, they sped
toward the open country.

The weather, still warm the evening before--that evening of moonlight,
not to be forgotten--had turned cold with morning; and to-night there
was a pungent scent of dying leaves in the air. It smote Leopold in
the face, with the wind of motion, and it seemed to him the essential
perfume of sadness. Never again would he inhale that fragrance of the
falling year without recalling this hour.

He was half mad with impatience to reach the end of the journey, and
confound the Chancellor once for all; yet, as the swift electric
carriage spun smoothly along the white road, and landmark after
landmark vanished behind tree-branches laced with stars, something
within him, would at last have stayed the flying moments, had that
been possible. He burned to ask questions of von Breitstein, yet would
have died rather than utter them.

It was a relief to the Emperor, when, after a long silence, his
companion spoke,--though a relief which carried with it a prick of
resentment. Even the Chancellor had no right to speak first, without
permission from his sovereign.

"Forgive me, your Majesty," the old man said. "Your anger is hard to
bear; yet I bear it uncomplainingly because of my confidence that the
reward is not far off. I look for it no further in the future than
to-night."

"I, too, believe that you won't miss your reward!" returned the
Emperor sharply.

"I shall have it, I am sure, not only in your Majesty's forgiveness,
b