ee your
duty to the Princess? or must I explain it to you?"

I saw my duty as plainly as she did. "Her Highness's secret is a sacred
secret," I said. "I am bound to shrink from no sacrifice which may
preserve it."

The Baroness smiled maliciously. "I may have occasion," she answered,
"to remind you of what you have just said. In the meanwhile the
Princess's secret is in danger of discovery."

"By her father?"

"No. By the Doctor."

At first, I doubted whether she was in jest or in earnest. The next
instant, I remembered that the secretary had expressly cautioned me
against that man.

"It is evidently one of your virtues," the Baroness proceeded, "to
be slow to suspect. Prepare yourself for a disagreeable surprise. The
Doctor has been watching the Princess, on every occasion when she speaks
to you, with some object of his own in view. During my absence,
young sir, I have been engaged in discovering what that object is. My
excellent mother lives at the Court of the Grand Duke, and enjoys
the confidence of his Ministers. He is still a bachelor; and, in the
interests of the succession to the throne, the time has arrived when
he must marry. With my mother's assistance, I have found out that the
Doctor's medical errand here is a pretense. Influenced by the Princess's
beauty the Grand Duke has thought of her first as his future duchess.
Whether he has heard slanderous stories, or whether he is only a
cautious man, I can't tell you. But this I know: he has instructed his
physician--if he had employed a professed diplomatist his motive
might have been suspected--to observe her Highness privately, and to
communicate the result. The object of the report is to satisfy the Duke
that the Princess's reputation is above the reach of scandal; that she
is free from entanglements of a certain kind; and that she is in
every respect a person to whom he can with propriety offer his hand
in marriage. The Doctor, Mr. Ernest, is not disposed to allow you
to prevent him from sending in a favorable report. He has drawn his
conclusions from the Princess's extraordinary kindness to the second
secretary of the English legation; and he is only waiting for a little
plainer evidence to communicate his suspicions to the Prince. It rests
with you to save the Princess."

"Only tell me how I am to do it!" I said.

"There is but one way of doing it," she answered; "and that way has
(comically enough) been suggested to me by the Doctor himself."