claration that
he should have her every movement watched. If this American was
watching her, the duke was vastly more astute than she had given him
the credit for being. "Are you in the pay of the duke? Come, confess
that you have followed me, that you have been watching me for these
four days." How bitter the cup of romance tasted to her now! She had
been deceived. "Well, you shall never take me from this train save by
force. I _will_ not go back!"

"I haven't the slightest idea of what you are talking about," he said,
mightily discouraged. "I never saw this country till Monday, and never
want to see it again."

"From what are you running away then?"--skeptically.

"I am running away from a man who slapped me in the face,"--bitterly;
and all his wrongs returned to him.

"Indeed!"--derisively.

"Yes, I!" He thrust out both his great arms miserably. "I'm a
healthy-looking individual, am I not, to be running away from anything?"

"Especially after having been a soldier in the Spanish War. Why did
you tell me that your name was Scharfenstein?"

"Heaven on earth, it _is_ Scharfenstein! I'm simply taking my chance
on another man's passports."

"I am unconvinced,"--ungraciously. She was, however, inordinately
happy; at the sight of the picture of woe on his face all her trust in
him returned. She believed every word he said, but she wanted to know
everything.

"Very well; I see that I must tell you everything to get back into your
good graces--Fraeulein von Heideloff."

"If you _ever_ were in my good graces!"

Graphically he recounted the adventure at Mueller's. He was a capital
story-teller, and he made a very good impression.

"If it hadn't been for the princess' eloping I should not have been
here," he concluded, "for my friend would have had a waiter bring me
that chair."

"The princess' eloping!"--aghast.

"Why, yes. It seems that she eloped to-night; so the report came from
the palace."

The girl sat tight, as they say; then suddenly she burst into
uncontrollable laughter. It was the drollest thing she had ever heard.
She saw the duke tearing around the palace, ordering the police hither
and thither, sending telegrams, waking his advisers and dragging them
from their beds. My! what a hubbub! Suddenly she grew serious.

"Have you the revolver still?"

"Yes."

"Toss it out of the window; quick!"

"But--"

"Do as I say. They will naturally search you at the frontier."

He t