"I have lived more than sixteen years in America, Highness."

"Do you like it there?"

"It is a great country, full of great ideas and great men, Highness."

"And you will go back?"

"Soon, Highness."

The mare, knowing that this was the way home, grew restive and began
prancing and pawing the road. She reined in quickly. As she did so,
something yellow flashed downward and tinkled as it struck the ground.
Grumbach hastened forward.

"My locket," said her highness anxiously.

"It is not broken, Highness," said Grumbach; "only the chain has come
apart." Then he handed it to her gravely.

"Thank you!" Her highness put both chain and locket into a small purse
which she carried in her belt, touched the mare, and sped up the road,
Carmichael following.

Grumbach returned to the parapet. He followed them till they passed out
of sight beyond the gates.

"_Gott!_" he murmured.

His face was as livid as the scar on his head.

CHAPTER XV

THE WRONG MAN

Herbeck dropped his quill, and there was a dream in his eyes. His desk
was littered with papers, well covered with ink; flowing sentences, and
innumerable figures. He was the watch-dog of the duchy. Never a bill
from the Reichstag that did not pass under his cold eye before it went
to the duke for his signature, his approval, or veto. Not a copper was
needlessly wasted, and never was one held back unnecessarily. Herbeck
was just both in great and little things. The commoners could neither
fool nor browbeat him.

The dream in his eyes grew; it was tender and kindly. The bar of
sunlight lengthened across his desk, and finally passed on. Still he sat
there, motionless, rapt. And thus the duke found him. But there was no
dream in _his_ eyes; they were cold with implacable anger. He held a
letter in his hand and tossed it to Herbeck.

"I shall throw ten thousand men across the frontier to-night, let the
consequences be what they may."

"Ten thousand men?" The dream was shattered. War again?

"Read that. It is the second anonymous communication I have received
within a week. As the first was truthful, there is no reason to believe
this one to be false."

Herbeck read, and he was genuinely startled.

"What do you say to that?" triumphantly.

"This," with that rapid decision which made him the really great
tactician he was. "Let them go quietly back to Jugendheit."

"No!" blazed the duke.

"Are we rich enough for war?"

"Always questions, questi