disclosure of the indiscreet role
played by the duke in the matter, and likewise because she really
knew too much! In fact, there is scarcely a secret pertaining to the
reigning family, or to the Court of Prussia, with which she is not
acquainted, and the fact that she should have refrained from
making any attempt to publish them to the world, gives rise to the
presumption that means of a financial character, or else some threats
of terrorism, have been used to insure her silence.

At the time of the descent of the police upon her house, Duke
Ernest-Gunther was staying at Lowther Castle, in Westmoreland,
England, as the guest of Lord Lonsdale, and was to have gone on at the
end of the week to Sandringham, to stay with the Prince and Princess
of Wales. On receiving telegrams, however, from his beautiful friend,
notifying him of her expulsion from Germany, he left Lowther Castle,
literally at an hour's notice, and without taking leave of his host,
proceeded immediately to Paris for the purpose of meeting her, in
order to find out to what extent the situation was compromised. There
is every reason to believe that it was not until then that he realized
that the writer of the long series of anonymous letters was no
other than the lady by whose fascinations he had been so completely
captivated. A considerable time elapsed before he returned to Berlin.
In fact, a very serious estrangement between himself and the emperor
ensued, William declining to hold any intercourse with a relative
whose susceptibility to feminine charms, and whose extraordinary
absence of even the most elementary discretion, had contributed to one
of the most painful scandals that have overtaken the Prussian Court
since the close of the last century.

Not even the Kaiser's fondness for his wife, nor his anxiety to please
her, could soften the anger which he felt against his brother-in-law,
and when after a prolonged voyage to India and elsewhere, the duke
on landing at Trieste, ran over from there to the neighboring seaside
resort of Abbazia, for the purpose of visiting the German imperial
couple, who were spending the early spring there with their children,
the kaiser declined to receive his brother-in-law and went out
shooting, so as to avoid an interview with him, the princely prodigal
meeting with no one except his sister, the empress, with whom he had
an interview of a couple of hours.

It is generally believed that Princess Charlotte's missing dia