morning?"

"I don't understand," murmured poor Helga in bewilderment.

"No, my dear lady, but for Heaven's sake do what I ask of you. It's the
only chance now."

"I'll do it," she said, and sat down to write.

Thus it was that, hard on the marvelous tidings which, as I conjecture,
the Baroness von Helsing poured into her husband's drowsy ears, came an
imperative summons that the chancellor should wait on the king at the
house of Fritz von Tarlenheim.

Truly we had tempted fate too far by bringing Rudolf Rassendyll again to
Strelsau.

CHAPTER XII. BEFORE THEM ALL!

GREAT as was the risk and immense as were the difficulties created by
the course which Mr. Rassendyll adopted, I cannot doubt that he acted
for the best in the light of the information which he possessed. His
plan was to disclose himself in the character of the king to Helsing,
to bind him to secrecy, and make him impose the same obligation on his
wife, daughter, and servants. The chancellor was to be quieted with the
excuse of urgent business, and conciliated by a promise that he should
know its nature in the course of a few hours; meanwhile an appeal to his
loyalty must suffice to insure obedience. If all went well in the day
that had now dawned, by the evening of it the letter would be destroyed,
the queen's peril past, and Rudolf once more far away from Strelsau.
Then enough of the truth--no more--must be disclosed. Helsing would be
told the story of Rudolf Rassendyll and persuaded to hold his tongue
about the harum-scarum Englishman (we are ready to believe much of
an Englishman) having been audacious enough again to play the king in
Strelsau. The old chancellor was a very good fellow, and I do not think
that Rudolf did wrong in relying upon him. Where he miscalculated was,
of course, just where he was ignorant. The whole of what the queen's
friends, ay, and the queen herself, did in Strelsau, became useless and
mischievous by reason of the king's death; their action must have been
utterly different, had they been aware of that catastrophe; but their
wisdom must be judged only according to their knowledge.

In the first place, the chancellor himself showed much good sense. Even
before he obeyed the king's summons he sent for the two servants and
charged them, on pain of instant dismissal and worse things to follow,
to say nothing of what they had seen. His commands to his wife and
daughter were more polite, doubtless, but no less peremptory.