horses in the road.

"Be not afraid. I have a strength more than my own to save you," came on
a wave of air.

"I fear not for myself, only for you lest they discover you," came the
answering wave.

"I love you. You are the most beautiful woman in the world and the
bravest. It's cause for pride to risk death for you."

"I know that you are here for me. I knew that you would come, when I saw
you in Metz. I know that under your peasant's garb you are a prince,
more of a real prince than any Auersperg that ever lived."

John was outside of himself. He felt sometimes as if he had left his
body behind. The spirit of the crusader was still upon him, and in sight
of his beloved, the prize that he had reached but not yet won, he cast
aside all thought of danger or failure and awaited the event, whatever
it might be, with the supreme confidence of youth. It is but truth to
say that he was happy in those days, filled with a stolen delight, all
the sweeter because it was stolen under the very eyes of the medieval
baron, lord almost of life and death, who was master there.

He steadily advanced in the good graces of Walther. No other such
industrious and skillful groom had appeared at Zillenstein in many a
day, and he rapidly acquired dexterity also with the automobiles. None
could send them spinning with more certainty along the curving mountain
roads. He practiced with diligence because he had a vague premonition
that all this knowledge would be of use to him some day.

Pappenheim went away, but returned after four days. John fancied that he
had been in Vienna, but he knew the magnet that had brought him back. He
saw the young Austrian's eyes flame more than once when Julie appeared
in her favorite place on the terrace. And yet John neither hated nor
feared him.

Kratzek was well enough to go back to the battle front, but he lingered.
John did not know what excuses he gave, but he was there, and his eyes,
too, burned when Julie passed.

Often in the evening he watched for the grim Suzanne and the word that
she would bring, but she did not come. Day by day he saw her, the long
black shadow behind her mistress, but she never looked toward him,
however intensely he wished it.

The prince went forth occasionally, but he always used an automobile and
he was never gone longer than a day. John wondered why he remained so
long at Zillenstein, knowing that he was a general in the German army
and a man of weight at the battle f