ueen Karma's exile and flight. Count
Irma is telling a tale which is calling recruits to the standard
of the revolutionists hourly. The eldest son--the Crown Prince
Maximilian--is still alive. The count swears to that; swears that
he has seen him; that he knows where to find him at any moment. The
special correspondent of the _Times_ writes that everywhere the
demand is for the Restoration, the battle cry of the insurgents
'Maximilian!' and the whole country ringing with it."

"I can quite believe it," he said, with one of his queer, crooked
smiles. "They are an excitable people, the Mauravanians, but,
unfortunately, a fickle one as well. It is up to-day and down
to-morrow with them. At present the cry is for Maximillian; this time
next month it may be for Irma and a republican form of government,
and--Maximillian may go hang for all they want of him. Still, if
they maintain the present cry--and the House of Alburtus falls--and
the followers of Irma win----But what's the use of bothering about
it? Let us talk of things that have a personal interest for us,
dear. Give me to-morrow, if you can. I shall have a whole day's
freedom for the first time in weeks. The water lilies are in bloom in
the upper reaches of the Thames and my soul is simply crying for the
river's solitudes, the lilies, the silence, and _you_! I want
you--all to myself--up there, among God's things. Give me the day,
if you can."

She gave him not one but many, as it turned out; for that one day
proved such a magic thing that she was only too willing to repeat it,
and as the Yard had no especial need of him, and the plain-clothes
man who had been set upon Waldemar's track had as yet nothing to
report, it grew to be a regular habit with him to spend the long days
up in the river solitudes with Ailsa, picnicking among the swans,
and to come home to Dollops at night tired, but very happy.

It went on like this for more than ten days, uninterruptedly; but at
length there came a time when an entry in his notebook warned him
that there was something he could not put off any longer--something
that must certainly be attended to to-morrow, in town, early--and he
went to bed that night with the melancholy feeling that the next day
could only be a half holiday, not a whole one, and that his hours
with her would be few.

But when that to-morrow came he knew that even these were to be
denied him; for the long-deferred call of the Yard had come, and
Narkom, ringi