his
words with a faint smile.

"Then I have one more important question to ask, venturing to remind
you first that I have acted solely in your interest. If such a step as
you contemplate should be my death blow, it is because of my love for
you, and Rhaetia. Tell me, your Majesty, this one thing. If it were
proved to you that the lady you know as Miss Mowbray, was, not only
not the person she pretends to be, but in all other respects unworthy
of your love--what would you do?"

"You speak of impossibilities."

"But if they were not impossibilities?"

"In such a case I should do as other men do--spend the rest of life in
trying to forget a lost ideal."

"I thank your Majesty. That is all I ask. I suppose you will continue
your journey?"

"Yes, as far as Felgarde, where I hope to find Lady Mowbray and her
daughter."

"Then, your Majesty, when I've expressed my gratitude for your
forebearance--even though I've failed to be convincing--I'll trouble
you no longer."

The Chancellor rose, painfully, with a reminiscence of gout, and
Leopold stared at him in surprise. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Only that, as I can do no further good here, with your permission, I
will get out at the station we are coming into, and go back home
again."

The Emperor realized, what he had not noticed until this moment, that
the train was slackening speed as it approached the suburbs of a town.
His conversation with the Chancellor had lasted for an hour, and he
was far from regretting the prospect of being left in peace. More than
once he had come perilously near to losing his temper, forgetting his
gratitude and the old man's years. How much longer he could have held
out under a continued strain of provocation, he did not know; so he
spoke no word of dissuasion when Count von Breitstein picked up his
soft hat and buttoned the gray coat for departure.

"I've passed pleasanter hours in your society, I admit," said Leopold,
when the train stopped. "But I can thank you for your motives, if not
your maxims; and here's my hand."

"It would be most kind of your Majesty to telephone me from Felgarde,"
the Chancellor exclaimed, as if on a sudden thought, while they shook
hands, "merely to say whether you remain there; or whether you go
further; or whether you return at once. I am too fatigued to travel
back immediately to Schloss Breitstein, and shall rest for some hours
at least, in my house at Kronburg, so a call will find me there."