"Yes; I remember hearing something about him."

"It is that man--the criminal," she declared; and then, in quick, breathless sentences, she explained how her jewels had been stolen in Paris, and how, when the thieves knew of her ident.i.ty, the bag had been restored to her intact. He listened to every word in silence, wondering. The series of romantic incidents held him surprised. They were really gallant and gentlemanly thieves, if--if nothing else, he declared.

"To this Mr. Bourne I owe my life," she said; "and to him I also owe the return of my jewels. Is it, therefore, any wonder when these two men, Bourne and Redmayne, have showed me such consideration, that, lonely as I am, I should regard them as friends? I have Redmayne's daughter with me here, as maid. She is below, with Ignatia. It is this Mr. Bourne, who is engaged to be married to Leucha Redmayne, that Hinckeldeym seeks to denounce as my lover!"

"He says that both men are guilty of theft within the Empire; indeed, Bourne is, it is said, guilty of jewel robbery in Eugendorf."

"They have both been arrested at Hinckeldeym's instigation, and are now in London, remanded before being extradited here."

"Oh! he has not lost very much time, it seems."

"No. His intention is that Mr. Bourne shall stand his trial here, in Treysa, and at the same time the prisoner is to be denounced by inspired articles in the press as my lover--that I, Queen of Marburg, have allied myself with a common criminal! Cannot you see his dastardly intention?

He means that this, his last blow, his master stroke, shall crush me, and break my power for ever," she cried desperately. "You, Ferdinand, will give me justice--I know you will! I am still your wife!" she implored. "You will not allow their foul lies and insinuations to influence you further; will you?" she asked. "In order to debase me in your eyes and in the eyes of all Europe, Hinckeldeym has caused the arrest of this man to whom I owe my life--the man who saved me, not because I was Crown Princess, but because I was merely a woman in peril.

Think what betrayal and arrest means to these men. It means long terms of imprisonment to both. And why? Merely in order to attack me-- because I am their friend. They may be guilty of theft--indeed they admit they are; nevertheless I ask you to give them your clemency, and to save them. You can have them brought here for trial; and there are ways, technicalities of the law, or something, by which their release can be secured. A King may act as he chooses in his own Kingdom."

Every word she spoke was so worthy of herself, so full of sentiment and beauty, poetry and pa.s.sion. Too naturally frank for disguise, too modest to confess her depth of love while the issue remained in suspense, it was a conflict between love and fear and dignity.

"I think you ask me rather too much, Claire," he said, in a somewhat quieter tone. "You ask me to believe all that you tell me, without giving me any proof whatsoever."

"And how can I give you proof when Mr. Bourne and his friend are in custody in London? Let them be extradited to Treysa, and then you may have them brought before you privately and questioned."

For some moments he did not speak. What she had just alleged had placed upon the matter an entirely different aspect. Indeed, within himself he was compelled to admit that the suspicions he had lately entertained regarding Hinckeldeym had now been considerably increased by her surprising statements. Was she speaking the truth?

Whenever he allowed his mind to wander back he recollected that it had been the crafty old President who had first aroused those fierce jealous thoughts within his heart. It was he who had made those allegations against Leitolf; he who, from the very first weeks of his marriage, had treated Claire with marked antipathy, although to her face he had shown such cordiality and deep obeisance that she had actually believed him to be her friend. Yes, he now recognised that this old man, in whom his father had reposed such perfect confidence, had been the fount of all those reports that had scandalised Europe. If his calm, sweet-faced wife had, after all, been a really good and faithful woman, then he had acted as an outrageous brute to her. His own cruelty p.r.i.c.ked his conscience. It was for her to forgive, not for her to seek forgiveness.

She saw his hesitation, and believed it due to a reluctance to accept her allegations as the real truth.

"If you doubt me, Ferdinand, call Hinckeldeym at this instant. Let me face this man before you, and let me categorically deny all the false charges which he and his sycophants have from time to time laid against me. Here, at Court, I am feared, because they know that I am aware of all my secret enemies. Make a clearance of them all and commence afresh," she urged, a sweet light in her wonderful eyes. "You have clever men about you who would make honest and excellent Ministers; but while you are surrounded by such conspirators as these, neither you nor the throne itself is safe. I know," she went on breathlessly, "that you have been seized by a terrible jealousy--a cruel, consuming jealousy, purposely aroused against me in order to bring about the result which was but the natural outcome--my exile from Treysa and our estrangement.

It is true that you did not treat me kindly--that you struck me--that you insulted me--that you have disfigured me by your blows; but recollect, I beg, that I have never once complained. I never once revealed the secret of my dire unhappiness; only to one man, the man who has been my friend ever since my childhood--Carl Leitolf. And if you had been in my place, Ferdinand, I ask whether you would not have sought comfort in relating your unhappiness to a friend. I ask you that question," she added, in a low, intense, trembling voice. "For all your unkindness and neglect I have long ago really forgiven you. I have prayed earnestly to G.o.d that He would open your eyes and show me in my true light--a faithful wife. I leave it to Him to be my judge, and to deal out to my enemies the justice they deserve."

"Claire!" he cried, suddenly taking her slim white hand in his and looking fiercely into her beautiful eyes, "is this the real truth that you have just told me?"

"It is!" she answered firmly; "before G.o.d, I swear that it is! I am a poor sinner in His sight, but as your wife I have nothing with which to reproach myself--nothing. If you doubt me, then call Leitolf from Rome; call Bourne. Both men, instead of being my lovers, are your friends-- and mine. I can look both you and them in the face without flinching, and am ready to do so whenever it is your will."

All was consummated in that one final touch of truth and nature. The consciousness of her own worth and integrity which had sustained her through all her trials of heart, and that pride of station for which she had contended through long years--which had become more dear by opposition and by the perseverance with which she had a.s.serted it-- remained the last strong feeling upon her mind even at that moment, the most fateful crisis of her existence.

Her earnest, fearless frankness impressed him. Was it really possible that his wife--this calm-faced woman who had been condemned by him everywhere, and against whom he had already commenced proceedings for a divorce--was really, after all, quite innocent?

He remembered Hinckeldeym's foul allegations, the d.a.m.ning evidence of his spies, the copies of certain letters. Was all this a tissue of fraud, falsehood, and forgery?

In a few rapid words she went on to relate how, in that moment of resentment at such scandalous gossip being propagated concerning her, she had threatened that when she became Queen she would change the whole entourage, and in a brief, pointed argument she showed him the strong motive with which the evil-eyed President of the Council had formed the dastardly conspiracy against her.

"Claire," he asked, still holding her soft hand with the wedding ring upon it, "after all that has pa.s.sed--after all my harsh, inhuman cruelty to you--can you really love me still? Do you really entertain one single spark of love for me?"

"Love you!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms in a pa.s.sion of tears; "love you, Ferdinand!" she sobbed. "Why, you are my husband; whom else have I to love, besides our child?"

"Then I will break up this d.a.m.nable conspiracy against you," he said determinedly. "I--the King--will seek out and punish all who have plotted against my happiness and yours. They shall be shown no mercy; they shall all be swept into obscurity and ruin. They thought," he added, in a hard, hoa.r.s.e voice, "to retain their positions at Court by keeping us apart, because they knew that you had discovered their despicable duplicity. Leave them to me; Ferdinand of Marburg knows well how to redress a wrong, especially one which concerns his wife's honour," and he ran his hand over his wife's soft hair as he bent and kissed her lips.

So overcome with emotion was she that at the moment she could not speak.

G.o.d had at last answered those fervent appeals that she had made ever since the first year of their marriage.

"I have wronged you, Claire--deeply, very deeply wronged you," he went on, in a husky, apologetic voice, his arm tenderly about her waist, as he again pressed his lips to hers in reconciliation. "But it was the fault of others. They lied to me; they exaggerated facts and manufactured evidence, and I foolishly believed them. Yet now that you have lifted the scales from my eyes, the whole of their devilishly clever intrigue stands plainly revealed. It utterly staggers me. I can only ask you to forgive. Let us from to-night commence a new life--that sweet, calm life of trust and love which when we married we both believed was to be ours for ever, but which, alas! by the interference and malignity of our enemies, was turned from affection into hatred and unhappiness."

"I am ready, Ferdinand," she answered, a sweet smile lighting up her beautiful features. "We will bury the past; for you are King and I am Queen, and surely none shall now come between us. My happiness tonight, knowing that you are, after all, good and generous, and that you really love me truly, no mere words of mine can reveal. Yet even now I have still a serious thought, a sharp pang of conscience for those who are doomed to suffer because they acted as my friends when I was outcast and friendless."

"You mean the men Bourne and Redmayne," the King said. "Yes, they are in a very perilous position. We must press for their extradition here, and then their release will be easy. To-morrow you must find some means by which to rea.s.sure them."

"And Hinckeldeym?"

"Hinckeldeym shall this very night answer to his Sovereign for the foul lies he has spoken," replied the King, in a hard, meaning tone. "But, dearest, think no more of that liar. He will never cross your path again; I shall take good care of that. And now," he said, imprinting a long, lingering caress upon her white, open brow--"and now let us call up our little Ignatia and see how the child has grown. An hour ago I was the saddest man in all the kingdom, Claire; now," he laughed, as he kissed her again, "I admit to you I am the very happiest!"

Their lips met again in a pa.s.sionate, fervent caress.

On her part she gazed up into his kind, loving eyes with a rapturous look which was more expressive than words--a look which told him plainly how deeply she still loved him, notwithstanding all the bitterness and injustice of the black, broken past.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

CONCLUSION.

The greatest flutter of excitement was caused throughout Germany--and throughout the whole of Europe, for the matter of that--when it became known through the press that the Queen of Marburg had returned.

Reuter's correspondent at Treysa was the first to give the astounding news to the world, and the world at first shrugged its shoulders and grinned.

When, however, a few days later, it became known that the Minister Heinrich Hinckeldeym had been summarily dismissed from office, his decorations withdrawn, and he was under arrest for serious peculation from the Royal Treasury, people began to wonder. Their doubts were, however, quickly set at rest when the Ministers Stuhlmann and Hoepfner were also dismissed and disgraced, and a semi-official statement was published in the Government _Gazette_ to the effect that the King had discovered that the charges against his wife were, from beginning to end, a tissue of false calumnies "invented by certain persons who sought to profit by her Majesty's absence from Court."

And so, by degrees, the reconciliation between the King and Queen gradually leaked out to the English public through the columns of their newspapers.

But little did they guess that the extradition case pressed so very hard at Bow Street last August against the two jewel thieves, Redmayne, _alias_ Ward, and Guy Bourne, had any connection with the great scandal at the Court of Marburg.

The men were extradited, Redmayne to be tried in Berlin and Bourne at Treysa; but of their sentences history, as recorded in the daily newspapers, is silent. The truth is that neither of them was sentenced, but by the private request of his Majesty, a legal technicality was discovered, which placed them at liberty.

Both men afterwards had private audience of the King, and personally received the royal thanks for the kindness they had shown towards the Queen and to little Ignatia. In order to mark his appreciation, his Majesty caused a lucrative appointment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where a knowledge of English was necessary, to be given to Roddy Redmayne, while Guy Bourne, through the King's recommendation, was appointed to the staff of an important German bank in New York; and it has been arranged that next month Leucha--who leaves her Majesty and Ignatia with much regret--goes to America to marry him. To her place, as Ignatia's nurse, the faithful Allen has now returned, while the false de Trauttenberg, who, instantly upon Hinckeldeym's downfall, went to live in Paris, has been succeeded by the Countess de Langendorf, one of Claire's intimate friends of her days at the Vienna Court, prior to her marriage.

What actually transpired between Hinckeldeym and his Sovereign on that fateful night will probably never be known. The people of Treysa are aware, however, that a few hours after "their Claire's" return the President of the Council was commanded to the royal presence, and left it ruined and disgraced. On the following day he was arrested in his own mansion by three gendarmes and taken to the common police office, where he afterwards attempted suicide, but was prevented.

The serious charges of peculation against him were, in due course, proved up to the hilt, and at the present moment he is undergoing a well-merited sentence of five years' imprisonment in the common gaol at Eugendorf.

Count Carl Leitolf was recalled from Rome to Treysa a few days later, and had audience in the King's private cabinet. The outcome was, however, entirely different, for the King, upon the diplomat's return to Rome, signed a decree bestowing upon him _di moto proprio_ the Order of Saint Stephen, one of the highest of the Marburg Orders, as a signal mark of esteem.

Thus was the public opinion of Europe turned in favour of the poor, misjudged woman who, although a reigning sovereign, had, by force of adverse circ.u.mstances, actually resigned her crown, and, accepting favours of the criminal cla.s.s as her friends, had found them faithful and devoted.

Of the Ministers of the Kingdom of Marburg only Meyer retains his portfolio at the present moment, while Steinbach has been promoted to a very responsible and lucrative appointment. The others are all in obscurity. Ministers, chamberlains, _dames du palais_ and _dames de la cour_, all have been swept away by a single stroke of the pen, and others, less p.r.o.ne to intrigue, appointed.

Henriette--the faithful Henriette--part of whose wardrobe Claire had appropriated on escaping from Treysa, is back again as her Majesty's head maid; and though the popular idea is that little real, genuine love exists between royalties, yet the King and Queen are probably the very happiest pair among the millions over whom they rule to-day.

Her Majesty, the womanly woman whose sweet, even temperament and constant solicitude for the poor and distressed is so well known throughout the Continent, is loudly acclaimed by all cla.s.ses each time she leaves the palace and smiles upon them from her carriage.

The people, who have universally denounced Hinckeldeym and his unscrupulous methods, still worship her and call her "their Claire."

But, by mutual consent, mention is no longer made of that dark, dastardly conspiracy which came so very near wrecking the lives of both King and Queen--that dastardly affair which the journalists termed "The Great Court Scandal."