mouth watering, into a large chair before a
gloriously spread German table, he heard the sound of voices; and the
chauffeur, Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice came out of the path to the
knoll.

They told the duke that they had neither seen nor heard anything of the
princess, her hosts, or Count Zerbst. The archduke cursed his equerry
wheezily but in the German tongue, and bade the chauffeur get into the
car and drive to the Grange as fast as petrol could take him.

Sir Maurice bade Miss Lambart good-by, saluted the archduke, and the
car went bumping down the turfed aisle. Once in the road the
chauffeur, anxious to make trial at an early moment of the archducal
hospitality, let her rip. But half a mile down the road, they came
upon a slow-going, limping wayfarer. It was Count Zerbst. After a
long discussion with Mrs. Dangerfield he had decided that since Erebus
had slipped away back to the knoll, it would be impossible for him to
find his way to it unguided; and he had set out for Muttle Deeping
Grange. In the course of his chase of Erebus and his walk back his
patent leather boots had found him out with great severity; and he was
indeed footsore. He stepped into the grateful car with a deep sigh of
relief.

A depressed party gathered round the luncheon table; Miss Lambart alone
was cheerful. The archduke had been much shaken by his terrors and
disappointments of the morning. Count Zerbst had acquired a deep
respect for the intelligence of the young friends of the princess; and
he had learned from Mrs. Dangerfield, who had discussed the matter with
Sir Maurice, that since her stay at the knoll was doing the princess
good, and was certainly better for her than life with the crimson
baroness at the Grange, she was not going to annoy and discourage her
charitable offspring by interfering in their good work for trivial
social reasons. The baroness was bitterly angry at their failure to
recover her lost charge.

They discussed the further measures to be taken, the archduke and the
baroness with asperity, Count Zerbst gloomily. He made no secret of
the fact that he believed that, if he dressed for the chase and took to
the woods, he would in the end find and capture the princess, but it
might take a week or ten days. The archduke cried shame upon a
strategist of his ability that he should be baffled by children for a
week or ten days. Count Zerbst said sulkily that it was not the
children who would baffle him, bu