nearer to the solitary bride's ear, as her only
relative there, her natural companion and
protector. Once or twice she repelled him without
ceremony; once she appealed to the hard,
inscrutable Grand-Duchess with an entreaty that
she would interfere, and that by showing less
regard to her English cousin, she would bring
her cousin and herself, too, more rarely together.
"Reginald's manner," Helen said, " meant
nothing; but she did not like it."

"0, neither does the Grand-Duke!" was the
silencing answer; and the bilious eyes shot a
more baleful light than ever.

All this was intolerable enough, but the days
were wearing over. Oranienberg's return would
now take place within six weeks at the utmost,
and every day brought its courier and its letter:
but might not the writer have taken some
warmer heed of her impassioned words in reply?
He could not be—O no, not changing—but—
growing a little colder?

One morning there came no courier from the
Baron. No more couriers came to court from
the Baron after that morning.

Ten nights after the beginning of this pause
—it was in high July—a figure, more closely
mantled than befitted so sultry a midnight, crept
stealthily under the wall of the terrace which ran
beneath the windows of the grand apartments
of the palace, and communicated, by a fantastic
staircase through a sort of belvidere, with the
upper story. The grated door of this belvidere
was always locked at dusk. In only three windows
of the long range of windows on the upper
story there burned a dull light. Once, a shadow
was seen to cross this light.

The intruder paused, listened, drew a deep
breath, in which there was something like an
oath, stood aside when the moon slid from
beneath a cloud, and muffled himself to the chin.
For he was aware that some one was watching
him—a still black figure sitting above on the
steps of the staircase close beneath the grated
door. " What, has the jealous brute left a
jailer to turn the key on her?" muttered the
Grand-Duke. " No one can be resting there to
amuse himself, at this hour." He muttered a
second oath, which, perhaps, may have been
heard.

Certainly he was seen, for a voice challenged
him: " Who goes there?" There was nothing
to be done save to go forward. The Grand-
Duke, though not wise, could not run away
like a thief.

"Ah! Sir Reginald! I thought I knew your
figure and your voice! . . . . What a heavenly
night! Quite Italian! . . . . Is your beautiful
cousin better? Your friend, the Duchess, was so
distressed to hear of her fever. I sent Drottning,
of course, to her; the only fellow one can trust.
But she has some one in her own suite, it seems—
some English doctor, probably—whom she
believes in, and he would not let Drottning see her.
What the Devil! Perhaps you are the doctor
after all!"—this with the laugh of a man proud
to have made a bright discovery.

"It is I, your Highness!" said Reginald,
coming down haughtily. The Grand-Duke had
his pipe in his mouth, and the smoke of it blew
in the Englishman's face—.In those days few
Englishmen smoked.—"It is I, your Highness!
My cousin is ill, and I am protecting her, in the
absence of her husband, as her nearest relation
should; and the Grand-Duchess would be sorry
were you to take cold. May I have the honour
of calling your Highness's carriage? The least
sound disturbs my cousin."

"You have seen her, then? You have been
with her?"—and another stream of smoke
affronted the Englishman's face—"or is she
really so ill that she can admit nobody? Is
this some device of yours? Some prescription,
doctor?"

"Your Highness, I am a gentleman," said
the other, with kindling choler, " and your
Highness knows, as well as I, that there are
questions which one man should not—shall not
—ask of another, even supposing the one man
to be a German Grand-Duke, and the other a
plain English gentleman. You have no right to
question me about the household arrangements
of my cousin at this time of night.
Sleep well." And Reginald turned away
contemptuously.

The one was a fool: the other was a libertine.
Both had been supping deep; both were out on
a bad errand; both were baffled by the sudden
illness of the pretty English bride, which had
taken the worst form of fever, and on which
her servants—Stiegel at the head—had barred
access to any intruders. " Come," said the
Grand-Duke, following Reginald, " if you are a
dragon, be an amiable dragon"  . . . . and
he began to laugh an ugly laugh, as he laid a
familiar hand on the shoulder of Helen's cousin.
"Do you expect me to believe a word of this
fever?"

"I expect you to answer a sharper question
of mine," was the answer of Reginald, drawing
his walking-sword.

The Grand-Duke was no coward; but he was
a worse swordsman than Reginald.

"You have hurt me, fellow," said he, reeling
back, after two or three passes had been
exchanged, " but you have won her. . . . There!
There! . . . I shall get back to my wife, never
mind how, and do you go to your cousin. There!
there! No. . . . I'll make no mischief. . . . I
shall say no word." . . . And shaking off the other,
who would have supported him, the Grand-Duke
managed to put up his rapier, and to totter
towards the gate.

Reginald looked back. There was not a
breath, not a whisper, not a sound, save that of
the fountain in the thicket at the other end
of the terrace. There was not a trace of a
passing figure on one of the three lighted
windows.

He, too, muttered his oath. "And can she
have shut me out, to wait for him? I will
make no scandal betwixt your Highness and
your delightful Grand-Duchess. But Helen, my
Helen! and I will make no scandal for you."