ut in your thanks."

"I'll forgive you when you've asked my pardon for your suspicions, and
when you've found Miss Mowbray for me."

"I have already found her, and am taking you to her now."

"Then, you actually believe in your own story? You believe that this
sweet and beautiful young girl is a fast actress, a schemer, a friend
of your notoriously gallant friend, and willing to risk her reputation
by paying a late visit, unchaperoned, to him at his hunting lodge in
the woods! You are after all a very poor judge of character, if you
dream that we shall see her there."

"I shall see her, your Majesty. And you will see her, unless the
madness you call love has blinded the eyes of your body as well as the
eyes of your mind. That she is now at the lodge I know, for the Prince
assured me with his own lips that she had promised to motor out alone
with him, and dine."

"You mean, he told you that his friend the actress had promised. I'll
stake my life, even he didn't dare to say Miss Mowbray."

"He said Miss Brett, the actress, it's true. But when he called upon
her at her hotel (where he and I met to discuss a matter which is no
secret to your Majesty), he asked for Miss Mowbray. And the message
that came down, I heard. It was that Miss Mowbray would be delighted
to see his Royal Highness. This left no doubt in my mind that, after
giving out that she would leave to-day, the lady had remained in
Kronburg for the express purpose of meeting her dear friend the
Prince, the handsomest and best dressed young man in Europe--after
your Majesty, of course. And it was quite natural for her to hope
that, as she was supposed to be gone, and you were following her, this
evening's escapade would never be discovered."

"Please spare me your deductions, Chancellor," said the Emperor,
curtly, "and pray understand now, if you have not understood before,
that I am with you in this expedition not to prove you right, but
wrong; and nothing you can say will convince me that the Prince's
actress and Miss Mowbray are one. If we find a woman at the hunting
lodge, it will not be the lady we seek--unless she has been kidnapped;
and as you will presently be obliged to eat every word you've spoken,
the fewer such bitter pills you provide for yourself to swallow, the
better."

Thus snubbed by the young man whom he had held in his arms, an
imperious as well as an Imperial infant, the old statesman sought
sanctuary in silence. But he had said that