Yet she bowed, smiled, and put on that air of graciousness that, on account of her Court training, she could now a.s.sume at will.

The men were from somewhere in North Germany, she detected by their speech, and at the dinner-table the conversation was mostly upon the advance of science; therefore she concluded, from their spectacled appearance and the technical terms they used, that they were scientists from Berlin to whom her husband wished to be kind, and had invited them quite without formality.

Their conversation did not interest her in the least; therefore she remained almost silent throughout the meal, except now and then to address a remark to one or other of her guests. She noticed that once or twice they exchanged strange glances. What could it mean?

At last she rose, and after they had bowed her out they reseated themselves, and all four began conversing in a lower tone in English, lest any servant should enter unexpectedly.

Then ten minutes later, at a signal from the Prince, they rose and pa.s.sed into the _fumoir_, a pretty room panelled with cedar-wood, and with great palms and plashing fountains, where coffee was served and cigars were lit.

There the conversation in an undertone in English was again resumed, the Prince being apparently very interested in something which his guests were explaining. Though the door was closed and they believed themselves in perfect privacy, there was a listener standing in the adjoining room, where the cedar panelling only acted as a part.i.tion.

It was the Princess Claire. Her curiosity had been aroused as to who the strangers really were.

She could hear them speaking in English at first with difficulty, but presently her husband spoke. The words he uttered were clear. In an instant they revealed to her an awful, unexpected truth.

She held her breath, her left hand upon her bare chest above her corsage, her mouth open, her white face drawn and haggard.

Scarce believing her own ears, she again listened. Could it really be true?

Her husband again spoke. Ah yes! of the words he uttered there could be not the slightest doubt. She was doomed.

With uneven steps she staggered from her hiding-place along the corridor to her own room, and on opening the door she fell forward senseless upon the carpet.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE PERIL OF THE PRINCESS.

That night, six hours later, when the great palace was silent save for the tramping of the sentries, the Princess sat in the big chair at her window, looking out upon the park, white beneath the bright moonbeams.

The room was in darkness, save for the tiny silver lamp burning before the picture of the Madonna. The Trauttenberg had found her lying insensible, and with Henriette's aid had restored her to consciousness and put her to bed. Then the Countess had gone along to the Crown Prince and told him that his wife had been seized with a fainting fit, and was indisposed.

And the three guests, when he told them, exchanged significant glances, and were silent.

In the darkness, with the moonlight falling across the room, the Princess, in her white silk dressing-gown, sat staring straight before her out upon the fairy-like scene presented below. No word escaped her pale lips, yet she shuddered, and drew her laces about her as though she were chilled.

She was recalling those hard words of her husband's which she had overheard--the words that revealed to her the ghastly truth. If ever she had suffered during her married life, she suffered at that moment.

It was cruel, unjust, dastardly. Was there no love or justice for her?

The truth was a ghastly one. Those three strangers whom her husband had introduced to her table as guests were doctors, two from Berlin and the third from Cologne--specialists in mental disease. They had come there for the purpose of adding their testimony and certificates to that of Veltman, the crafty, thin-nosed Court physician, to declare that she was insane!

What fees were promised those men, or how that plot had been matured, she could only imagine. Yet the grim fact remained that her enemies, with the old King and her husband at their head, intended to confine her in an asylum.

She had heard her husband himself suggest that on the morrow they should meet Veltman, a white-bearded, bald-headed old charlatan whom she detested, and add their testimony to his that she was not responsible for her actions. Could anything be more cold-blooded, more absolutely outrageous? Those words of her husband showed her plainly that in his heart there now remained not one single spark either of affection or of sentiment. He was anxious, at all hazards and at whatever cost, by fair means or foul, to rid himself of her.

Her enemies were now playing their trump card. They had no doubt bribed those three men to certify what was a direct untruth. A royal sovereign can, alas I command the services of any one; for everybody, more or less, likes to render to royalty a service in the hope of decoration or of substantial reward. Most men are at heart place-seekers. Men who are most honest and upright in their daily lives will not hesitate to perjure themselves, or "stretch a point" as they would doubtless put it, where royalty is concerned.

Gazing out into the brilliant moonlight mirrored upon the smooth surface of the lake, she calmly reviewed the situation.

She was in grave peril--so grave, indeed, that she was now utterly bewildered as to what her next step should be. Once certified as a lunatic and shut up in an asylum somewhere away in the heart of the country, all hope of the future would be cut off. She would be entirely at the mercy of those who so persistently and unscrupulously sought her end. Having failed in their other plot against, her, they intended to consign her to a living tomb.

Yet by good fortune had her curiosity been aroused, and she had overheard sufficient to reveal to her the truth. Her face was now hard, her teeth firmly set. Whatever affection she had borne her husband was crushed within her now that she realised how ingeniously he was conspiring against her, and to what length he was actually prepared to go in order to rid himself of her.

She thought of Ignatia, poor, innocent little Ignatia, the child whom its father had cursed from the very hour of its birth, the royal Princess who one day might be crowned a reigning sovereign. What would become of her? Would her own Imperial family stand by and see their daughter incarcerated in a madhouse when she was as sane as they themselves--more sane, perhaps?

She sat bewildered.

With the Emperor against her, however, she had but little to hope for in that quarter. His Majesty actually believed the scandal that had been circulated concerning Leitolf, and had himself declared to her face that she must be mad.

Was it possible that those hot words of the Emperor's had been seized upon by her husband to obtain a declaration that she was really insane?

Insane? She laughed bitterly to herself at such a thought.

"Ah!" she sighed sadly, speaking hoa.r.s.ely to herself. "What I have suffered and endured here in this awful place are surely sufficient to send any woman mad. Yet G.o.d has been very good to me, and has allowed me still to preserve all my faculties intact. Why don't they have some a.s.sa.s.sin to kill me?" she added desperately. "It would surely be more humane than what they now intend."

Steinbach, her faithful but secret friend, was on his way to Vienna.

She wondered whether, after reading the letter, the Emperor would relent towards her? Surely the whole world could not unite as her enemy.

There must be human pity and sympathy in the hearts of some, as there was in the heart of the humble Steinbach.

Not one of the thirty millions over whom she would shortly rule was so unhappy as she that night. Beyond the park shone the myriad lights of the splendid capital, and she wondered whether any one living away there so very far from the world ever guessed how lonely and wretched was her life amid all that gorgeous pomp and regal splendour.

Those three grave, spectacled men who had dined at her table and talked their scientific jargon intended to denounce her. They had been quick to recognise that a future king is a friend not to be despised, while the bankers' drafts that certain persons had promised them in exchange for their signatures as experts would no doubt be very acceptable.

Calmly she reviewed the situation, and saw that, so clearly had her enemies estranged her from every one, she was without one single friend.

For her child's sake it was imperative for her to save herself. And she could only save herself by flight. But whither? The only course open to her was to leave secretly, taking little Ignatia with her, return to her father, and lay before him the dastardly plot now in progress.

Each hour she remained at the palace increased her peril. Once p.r.o.nounced insane by those three specialists there would be no hope for her. Her enemies would take good care that she was consigned to an asylum, and that her actions were misconstrued into those of a person insane.

Her heart beat quickly as she thought out the best means of secret escape.

To leave that night was quite impossible. Allen was sleeping with Ignatia; and besides, the guards at the palace gate, on seeing her make her exit at that hour, would chatter among themselves, in addition to which there were no express trains to Vienna in the night. The best train was at seven o'clock in the evening, for upon it was a _wagon-lit_ and dining-car that went through to the Austrian capital, _via_ Eger.

About six o'clock in the evening would be the best time to secure the child, for Allen and Henriette would then both be at dinner, and little Ignatia would be in charge of the under-nurse, whom she could easily send away upon some pretext. Besides, at that hour she could secure some of Henriette's clothes, and with her veil down might pa.s.s the sentries, who would probably take her for the French maid herself.

She calculated that her absence would not be noted by her servants till nearly eight; for there was a Court ball on the morrow, and on nights of the b.a.l.l.s she always dressed later.

And so, determined to leave the great palace which to her was a prison, she carefully thought over all the details of her flight. On the morrow she would send to the royal treasurer for a sum of money, ostensibly to make a donation to one of her charities.

Presently rising, she closed the shutters, and switching on the electric light, opened the safe in the wall where her jewels were kept--mostly royal heirlooms that were worth nearly a million sterling.

Case after case she drew out and opened. Her two magnificent tiaras, her emerald and diamond necklet, the great emerald pendant, once the property of Catherine di Medici, six wonderful collars of perfect pearls and some other miscellaneous jewels, all of them magnificent, she replaced in the safe, as they were heirlooms of the Kingdom. Those royal tiaras as Crown Princess she placed in their cases and put them away with a sigh, for she knew she was renouncing her crown for ever.

Her own jewels, quite equal in magnificence, she took from their cases and placed together upon the bed. There was her magnificent long rope of pearls, that when worn twice twisted around her neck hung to below the knees, and was declared to be one of the finest in the world; her two diamond collars, her wonderful diamond bodice ornaments, her many pairs of earrings, antique brooches, and other jewels--she took them all from their cases until they lay together, a brilliant, scintillating heap, the magnificent gems flashing with a thousand fires.

At last she drew forth a leather case about six inches square, and opening it, gazed upon it in hesitancy. Within was a large true-lover's knot in splendid diamonds, and attached to it was the black ribbon and the jewelled cross--her decoration as Dame de la Croix Etoilee of Austria, the order bestowed upon the Imperial Archd.u.c.h.esses.

She looked at it wistfully. Sight of it brought to her mind the fact that in renouncing her position she must also renounce that mark of her Imperial birth. Yet she was determined, and with trembling fingers detached the ribbon and cross from the diamond ornament, threw the latter on to the heap upon the bed, and replaced the former with the jewels she intended to leave behind.

The beautiful cross had been bestowed upon her by her uncle the Emperor upon her marriage, and would now be sent back to him.