utside and stood motionless to listen. Rudolf opened the door and
walked in. The girl darted breathlessly up the remaining steps, and,
coming to the door, just as it swung back on the latch, crouched down
by it, listening to what passed within, catching glimpses of forms and
movements through the chinks of the crazy hinge and the crevices where
the wood of the panel sprung and left a narrow eye hole for her absorbed
gazing.

Rupert of Hentzau had no thought of ghosts; the men he killed lay still
where they fell, and slept where they were buried. And he had no
wonder at the sight of Rudolf Rassendyll. It told him no more than that
Rischenheim's errand had fallen out ill, at which he was not surprised,
and that his old enemy was again in his path, at which (as I verily
believe) he was more glad than sorry. As Rudolf entered, he had been
half-way between window and table; he came forward to the table now, and
stood leaning the points of two fingers on the unpolished dirty-white
deal.

"Ah, the play-actor!" said he, with a gleam of his teeth and a toss of
his curls, while his second hand, like Mr. Rassendyll's, rested in the
pocket of his coat.

Mr. Rassendyll himself has confessed that in old days it went against
the grain with him when Rupert called him a play-actor. He was a little
older now, and his temper more difficult to stir.

"Yes, the play-actor," he answered, smiling. "With a shorter part this
time, though."

"What part to-day? Isn't it the old one, the king with a pasteboard
crown?" asked Rupert, sitting down on the table. "Faith, we shall do
handsomely in Ruritania: you have a pasteboard crown, and I (humble man
though I am) have given the other one a heavenly crown. What a brave
show! But perhaps I tell you news?"

"No, I know what you've done."

"I take no credit. It was more the dog's doing than mine," said Rupert
carelessly. "However, there it is, and dead he is, and there's an end of
it. What's your business, play-actor?"

At the repetition of this last word, to her so mysterious, the girl
outside pressed her eyes more eagerly to the chink and strained her ears
to listen more sedulously. And what did the count mean by the "other
one" and "a heavenly crown"?

"Why not call me king?" asked Rudolf.

"They call you that in Strelsau?"

"Those that know I'm here."

"And they are--?"

"Some few score."

"And thus," said Rupert, waving an arm towards the window, "the town is
quiet and the flags