In the privacy of her room, admiring the clear flowing hand, she read the words, delicious in their strangeness to her, notwithstanding the heavy news, as though they were sung out of a night-sky: 

’Most picturesque of Castles!

May none these marks efface,
For they appeal from Tyranny . . .’

’We start at noon to-day.  Sailing orders have been issued, and I could only have resisted them in my own person by casting myself overboard.  I go like the boat behind the vessel.  You were expected yesterday, at latest this morning.  I have seen boxes in the hall, with a name on them not foreign to me.  Why does the master tarry?  Sir, of your valliance you should have held to your good vow,—­quoth the damozel, for now you see me sore perplexed and that you did not your devoir is my affliction.  Where lingers chivalry, she should have proceeded, if not with my knight?  I feast on your regrets.  I would not have you less than miserable:  and I fear the reason is, that I am not so very, very sure you will be so at all or very hugely, as I would command it of you for just time enough to see that change over your eyebrows I know so well.

’If you had seen a certain Henrietta yesterday you would have the picture of how you ought to look.  The admiral was heard welcoming a new arrival —­you can hear him.  She ran down the stairs quicker than any cascade of this district, she would have made a bet with Livia that it could be no one else—­her hand was out, before she was aware of the difference it was locked in Lord F.’s!

’Let the guilty absent suffer for causing such a betrayal of disappointment.  I must be avenged!  But if indeed you are unhappy and would like to chide the innocent, I am full of compassion for the poor gentleman inheriting my legitimate feelings of wrath, and beg merely that he will not pour them out on me with pen and paper, but from his lips and eyes.

’Time pressing, I chatter no more.  The destination is Livia’s beloved Baden.  We rest a night in the city of Mozart, a night at Munich, a night at Stuttgart.  Baden will detain my cousin full a week.  She has Captain Abrane and Sir Meeson Corby in attendance—­her long shadow and her short:  both devoted to Lord F., to win her smile, and how he drives them!  The captain has been paraded on the promenade, to the stupefaction of the foreigner.  Princes, counts, generals, diplomats passed under him in awe.  I am told that he is called St. Christopher.

’Why do we go thus hastily?—­my friend, this letter has to be concealed.  I know some one who sees in the dark.