The Prince came forward. “What a delightful surprise,” he said. “How good of you both to look me up! But I wish my prophetic soul had warned me to keep back dinner. We have just reached the third course.” And his eyes met the Chancellor’s.

“All the same,” he went on, “I beg that you will honor me by dining. Everything can be ready in a moment; and the bisque eccrevisso—”

“Thank you,” cut in the Emperor. “We cannot dine.” His voice came hoarsely, as if a fierce hand pinched his throat. “Our call is purely one of business, and—a moment will see it finished. We owe you an explanation for this intrusion.” He paused. All his calculations were upset by the Chancellor’s triumph; for to plan beforehand, what he should do if he found Helen Mowbray dining here alone with the Prince, would have been to insult her. His campaign had been arranged in the event of the Chancellor’s defeat.

Now, the one course he saw open before him was frankness.

To look at the girl, and meet guilt or defiance in her eyes would be agony, therefore he would not look, though he saw her, and her alone, as he stood gazing with a strained fixedness at the Prince.

He knew that she had risen, not in frightened haste, but with a leisured and dainty dignity. Now, her face was turned to him. He felt it, as a blind man may feel the rising of the sun.

He wished that she had died before this moment, that they had both died last night in the garden, while he held her in his arms, and their hearts beat together. She had told him then that she loved him; yet she was here, with this man—here, of her own free will, the same girl he had worshiped as a goddess in the white moonlight, twenty-four hours ago.

The thought was hot in his heart as the searing touch of iron red from the fire. The same girl!

His blood sang in his ears, a song of death, and for an instant all was black around him. He groped in black chaos where there was neither light nor hope, and dully he was conscious of the Chancellor’s voice saying, “Your Majesty, if you are satisfied, would you not rather go?”

Then the dark spell broke. Light showered over him, as from a golden fountain, for in spite of himself he had met the girl’s eyes. The same eyes, because she was the same girl; sweet eyes, pure and innocent, and wistfully appealing.

“My God!” he cried, “tell me why you are here, and whatever you may say, I will believe you, in spite of all and through all, because you are You, and I know that you can do no wrong.”

“Your Majesty!” exclaimed the Chancellor. But the Emperor did not hear. With a broken exclamation that was half a sob, the girl held out both her hands, and Leopold sprang forward to crush them between his ice-cold palms.

“Thank Heaven!” she faltered. “You are true! You’ve stood the test. I love you.”

“At last, then, I can introduce you to my sister Virginia,” said the Crown Prince of Hungaria, with a great sigh of relief for the ending of his difficult part.