oad. You will meet the margravine, or
some one. I think, with you, it will be the margravine, and my father
puts her in good humour. Pardon a wretched little scheme to save you from
annoyance! So thus you return within a day, and the margravine, shelters
you. Your name will not be spoken. But go at once, for the sake of Prince
Ernest. I have hurt him already; help me to avoid doing him a mortal
injury. It was Schwartz who drove you? our old Schwartz! Old Warhead!
You see, we may be safe; only every fresh minute adds to the danger. And
another reason for going-another--'

'Ah!' she breathed, 'my Harry will talk himself into a fever.'

'I shall have it if the margravine comes here.'

'She shall not be admitted.'

'Or if I hear her, or hear that she has come! Consent at once, and revive
me. Oh! I am begging you to leave me, and wishing it with all my soul.
Think over what I have done. Do not write to me. I shall see the
compulsion of mere kindness between the lines. You consent. Your wisdom I
never doubt--I doubt my own.'

'When it is yours you would persuade me to confide in?' said she, with
some sorrowful archness.

Wits clear as hers could see that I had advised well, except in proposing
my father for escort. It was evidently better that she should go as she
came.

I refrained from asking her what she thought of me now. Suing for
immediate pardon would have been like the applying of a lancet to a vein
for blood: it would have burst forth, meaning mere words coloured by
commiseration, kindness, desperate affection, anything but her soul's
survey of herself and me; and though I yearned for the comfort passion
could give me, I knew the mind I was dealing with, or, rather, I knew I
was dealing with a mind; and I kept my tongue silent. The talk between us
was of the possible date of my recovery, the hour of her return to the
palace, the writer of the unsigned letters, books we had read apart or
peeped into together. She was a little quicker in speech, less
meditative. My sensitive watchfulness caught no other indication of a
change.

My father drove away an hour in advance of the princess to encounter the
margravine.

'By,' said he, rehearsing his exclamation of astonishment and delight at
meeting her, 'by the most miraculous piece of good fortune conceivable,
dear madam. And now comes the question, since you have condescended to
notice a solitary atom of your acquaintance on the public highroad,
whether I am to