“Will you wait for me?” she asked.  “I will not be long.”

Wogan stopped the pony.

“You would give thanks?” said he.  “I understand.”

“I would pray for an honest heart wherewith to give honest thanks,” said Clementina, in a low voice; and she added hastily, “There is a life of ceremonies, there is a life of cities before me.  I have lived under the skies these last two days.”

She went into the church, shrouding her face in her hood, and kneeled down before a rush chair close to the door.  A sense of gratitude, however, was not that morning to be got by any prayers, however earnest.  It was merely a distaste for ceremonies and observances, she strenuously assured herself, that had grown upon her during these ten days.  She sought to get rid of that distaste, as she kneeled, by picturing in her thoughts the Prince to whom she was betrothed.  She recalled the exploits, the virtues, which Wogan had ascribed to him; she stamped them upon the picture.  “It is the King,” she said to herself; and the picture answered her, “It is the King’s servant.”  And, lo! the face of the picture was the face of Charles Wogan.  She covered her cheeks with her hands in a burning rush of shame; she struck in her thoughts at the face of that image with her clenched fists, to bruise, to annihilate it.  “It is the King!  It is the King!  It is the King!” she cried in her remorse, but the image persisted.  It still wore the likeness of Charles Wogan; it still repeated, “No, it is the King’s servant.”  There was more of the primitive woman in this girl bred in the rugged country-side of Silesia than even Wogan was aware of, and during the halts in their journey she had learned from Mrs. Misset details which Wogan had been at pains to conceal.  It was Wogan who had conceived the idea of her rescue—­in the King’s place.  In the King’s place, Wogan had come to Innspruck and effected it.  In the King’s place, he had taken her by the hand and cleft a way for her through her enemies.  He was the man, the rescuer; she was the woman, the rescued.

She became conscious of the futility of her attitude of prayer.  She raised her head and saw that a man kneeling close to the altar had turned and was staring fixedly towards her.  The man was the Prince of Baden.  Had he recognised her?  She peered between her fingers; she remarked that his gaze was puzzled; he was not then sure, though he suspected.  She waited until he turned his head again, and then she silently rose to her feet and slipped out of the church.  She found Wogan waiting for her in some anxiety.

“Did he recognise you?” he asked.

“He was not sure,” answered Clementina.  “How did you know he was at Mass?”

“A native I spoke with told me.”

Clementina climbed up into the cart.

“The Prince is not a generous man,” she said hesitatingly.

Wogan understood her.  The Prince of Baden must not know that she had come to Peri escorted by a single cavalier.  He would talk bitterly, he would make much of his good fortune in that he had not married the Princess Clementina, he would pity the Chevalier de St. George,—­there was a fine tale there.  Wogan could trace it across the tea-tables of Europe, and hear the malicious inextinguishable laughter which winged it on its way.  He drove off quickly from the church door.