as a shoemaker than eminent as a
politician and a party-leader.

The house was now still and deserted, although the sounds of riotous
excess were faintly audible in the distance. The servants had evidently
fled at the same time that Blanka and the marchioness left the palace.
Looking out of her rear window, the princess noticed that her garden
gate was open; it must have been left swinging by her domestics in their
flight. She was hastening down-stairs to close it, when a man's form
appeared before her in the gathering gloom, and she cried out in sudden
terror.

"Do not be alarmed, Princess." The words came in a firm, manly voice
that thrilled the hearer; she recognised the tones. Manasseh Adorjan
stood before her. "I could not gain admittance by the front door," he
explained, "so I went around to the garden gate."

"And how is it," asked Blanka, "that you have come to me at the very
moment that I was seeking you?"

"I wished, first, to bid you farewell. I am going home, to Transylvania,
for my people are in trouble and I must go and help them. As long as
they are happy I avoid them, but when misfortune comes I cannot stay
away. War threatens to invade our peaceful valley, and I hasten
thither."

"Has the hour come, then, when you feel it right to kill your
fellow-men?"

"No, Princess; my part is to restore peace, not to foment strife."

Blanka's hands were clasped in her lap. She raised them to her bosom and
begged her fellow-countryman to take her with him.

The colour mounted to his face, his breast heaved, he passed his hand
across his brow, whereon the perspiration had started, and stammered, in
agitated accents:

"No, no, Princess, I cannot take you with me."

"Why not?" asked Blanka, tremulously.

"Because I am a man and but human. I could shield you against all the
world, but not against myself. I love you! And if you came with me, how
could you expect me to help you keep your vows? I am neither saint nor
angel, but a mortal, and a sinful one."

The poor girl sank speechless into a chair and hid her face in her
hands.

"Hear me further, Princess," continued the other, with forced calmness.
"I have told you but one reason why I sought you here to-day. The other
was to show you a means of escape from this place, where you cannot
remain in safety another day. You must leave Rome this very night, and
that will be no easy thing to accomplish now that all the gates are
guarded. But I have a plan. Ab