edge of his safety--met him as he ran towards her,
and, before Helga, or Bernenstein, or Rudolf himself, could stay her or
conceive what she was about to do, caught both his hands in hers with an
intense grasp, crying:

"Rudolf, you're safe! Thank God, oh, thank God!" and she carried his
hands to her lips and kissed them passionately.

A moment of absolute silence followed, dictated in the servants by
decorum, in the chancellor by consideration, in Helga and Bernenstein
by utter consternation. Rudolf himself also was silent, but whether
from bewilderment or an emotion answering to hers, I know not. Either it
might well be. The stillness struck her. She looked up in his eyes; she
looked round the room and saw Helsing, now bowing profoundly from the
corner; she turned her head with a sudden frightened jerk, and glanced
at my motionless deferential servants. Then it came upon her what she
had done. She gave a quick gasp for breath, and her face, always pale,
went white as marble. Her features set in a strange stiffness, and
suddenly she reeled where she stood, and fell forward. Only Rudolf's
hand bore her up. Thus for a moment, too short to reckon, they stood.
Then he, a smile of great love and pity coming on his lips, drew her
to him, and passing his arm about her waist, thus supported her. Then,
smiling still, he looked down on her, and said in a low tone, yet
distinct enough for all to hear:

"All is well, dearest."

My wife gripped Bernenstein's arm, and he turned to find her pale-faced
too, with quivering lips and shining eyes. But the eyes had a message,
and an urgent one, for him. He read it; he knew that it bade him second
what Rudolf Rassendyll had done. He came forward and approached Rudolf;
then he fell on one knee, and kissed Rudolf's left hand that was
extended to him.

"I'm very glad to see you, Lieutenant von Bernenstein," said Rudolf
Rassendyll.

For a moment the thing was done, ruin averted, and safety secured.
Everything had been at stake; that there was such a man as Rudolf
Rassendyll might have been disclosed; that he had once filled the king's
throne was a high secret which they were prepared to trust to Helsing
under stress of necessity; but there remained something which must be
hidden at all costs, and which the queen's passionate exclamation had
threatened to expose. There was a Rudolf Rassendyll, and he had been
king; but, more than all this, the queen loved him and he the queen.
That coul