w the black rush of the populace
begin to invade the lamplit avenue.

'Thank you, Georg,' she said. 'I thank you. Go.' And as the man still
lingered, 'I bid you go,' she added. 'Save yourself.'

Down by the private passage, and just some two hours later, Amalia
Seraphina, the last Princess, followed Otto Johann Friedrich, the last
Prince of Grunewald.

BOOK III--FORTUNATE MISFORTUNE

CHAPTER I--PRINCESS CINDERELLA

The porter, drawn by the growing turmoil, had vanished from the postern,
and the door stood open on the darkness of the night. As Seraphina fled
up the terraces, the cries and loud footing of the mob drew nearer the
doomed palace; the rush was like the rush of cavalry; the sound of
shattering lamps tingled above the rest; and, overtowering all, she heard
her own name bandied among the shouters. A bugle sounded at the door of
the guard-room; one gun was fired; and then with the yell of hundreds,
Mittwalden Palace was carried at a rush.

Sped by these dire sounds and voices, the Princess scaled the long
garden, skimming like a bird the starlit stairways; crossed the Park,
which was in that place narrow; and plunged upon the farther side into
the rude shelter of the forest. So, at a bound, she left the discretion
and the cheerful lamps of Palace evenings; ceased utterly to be a
sovereign lady; and, falling from the whole height of civilisation, ran
forth into the woods, a ragged Cinderella.

She went direct before her through an open tract of the forest, full of
brush and birches, and where the starlight guided her; and, beyond that
again, must thread the columned blackness of a pine grove joining
overhead the thatch of its long branches. At that hour the place was
breathless; a horror of night like a presence occupied that dungeon of
the wood; and she went groping, knocking against the boles--her ear,
betweenwhiles, strained to aching and yet unrewarded.

But the slope of the ground was upward, and encouraged her; and presently
she issued on a rocky hill that stood forth above the sea of forest. All
around were other hill-tops, big and little; sable vales of forest
between; overhead the open heaven and the brilliancy of countless stars;
and along the western sky the dim forms of mountains. The glory of the
great night laid hold upon her; her eyes shone with stars; she dipped her
sight into the coolness and brightness of the sky, as she might have
dipped her wrist into a spring; and