ow quite well I am safe, Alec. Somehow,
I hardly thought you and I should die to-day. We have things to do in
the world, you and I; but those horrid men frightened me by their
shrieks. It must be awful to pass into the unknown--like that!"

She sighed again. To her strained vision Alec suddenly assumed the
aspect of Henri Quatre's gilded statue on the Pont Neuf. It did not seem
to be in the least remarkable that the statue should leap from his horse
and take her in his arms. She was absolutely happy and content. She
felt she could rest there awhile in safety.

So, when the door was opened, the King experienced no difficulty in
carrying Joan through a scene of bloodshed that would certainly never
have been blotted from her mind had she remained conscious. Stampoff's
commands had been obeyed, and the place reeked of the shambles; but the
girl was happily as heedless of its nightmare horrors as the thirty-one
men who lay there dead or dying.

Alec bore her out into the street. The sight of him was greeted by a
sustained cheer from the troops and the loyal citizens who were now
threatening a riot of curiosity and alarm, since the news had gone round
that the King was being done to death by a rebellious soldiery in the
Fuerst Michaelstrasse, and Delgratz was hurrying to the rescue.

Joan, revived a little by the fresh air and bewildered by the shouting
throng that pressed around the King, opened her eyes. "Where am I?" she
whispered, delightfully ignorant of the fact that she was nestling in
Alec's arms under the gaze of many hundreds of his subjects.

"I am sending you to my mother, dear," he replied. "Felix and your maid
will be here in a moment, and they will take you to her in a carriage.
You cannot remain at the hotel, and you will be well cared for in
Monsieur Nesimir's house."

"Are you coming, Alec?" she asked, scanning his face like a timid child.

"Soon, quite soon."

"Then I am content," she said, and the cloud descended again for a brief
space.

Pauline, unfortunately, happened to be in the kitchen when the fray
began. She was nearly incoherent with fright; but Felix managed to
reassure her, and piloted her skilfully out of the hotel by an exit that
concealed the gruesome staircase.

The glittering escort of soldiers surrounding the carriage pressed into
the King's service served to complete the illusion insisted on by
Poluski, and Pauline rejoined her mistress, firm in the conviction that
the tumult