The height of her joy was the depth of Chateaudoux’s regret.

“I was stopped in my walk,” said he, “but not by the Chevalier Wogan.  Who it was I do not know.”

“Can you not guess?” cried Clementina.

“I would not trust a stranger,” said her mother.

“Would you not?” asked Clementina, with a smile.  “Describe him to me.”

“His face was wrinkled,” said Chateaudoux.

“It was disguised.”

“His figure was slight and not over-tall.”

M. Chateaudoux gave a fairly accurate description of Gaydon.

“I know no one whom the portrait fits,” said the mother, and again Clementina cried,—­

“Can you not guess?  Then, mother, I will punish you.  For though I know—­in very truth, I know—­I will not tell you.”  She turned back to Chateaudoux.  “Well, his message?  He did fix a time, a day, an hour, for my escape?”

“The 27th is the day, and at eight o’clock of the night.”

“I will be ready.”

“He will come here to fetch your Highness.  Meanwhile he prays your Highness to fall sick and keep your bed.”

“I can choose my malady,” said Clementina.  “It will not all be counterfeit, for indeed I shall fall sick of joy.  But why must I fall sick?”

“He brings a woman to take your place, who, lying in bed with the curtains drawn, will the later be discovered.”

The Princess’s mother saw here a hindrance to success and eagerly she spoke of it.

“How will the woman enter?  How, too, will my daughter leave?”

M. Chateaudoux coughed and hemmed in a great confusion.  He explained in delicate hints that he himself was to bribe the sentry at the door to let her pass for a few moments into the house.  The Princess broke into a laugh.

“Her name is Friederika, I’ll warrant,” she cried.  “My poor Chateaudoux, they will give you a sweetheart.  It is most cruel.  Well, Friederika, thanks to the sentry’s fellow-feeling for a burning heart, Friederika slips in at the door.”

“Which I have taken care should stand unlatched.  She changes clothes with your Highness, and your Highness—­”

“Slips out in her stead.”

“But he is to come for you, he says,” exclaimed her mother.  “And how will he do that?  Besides, we do not know his name.  And there must be a fitting companion who will travel with you.  Has he that companion?”

“Your Highness,” said Chateaudoux, “upon all those points he bade me say you should be satisfied.  All he asks is that you will be ready at the time.”

A gust of hail struck the window and made the room tremble.  Clementina laughed; her mother shivered.

“The Prince of Baden,” said she, with a sigh.  Clementina shrugged her shoulders.

“A Prince,” said Chateaudoux, persuasively, “with much territory to his princeliness.”

“A vain, fat, pudgy man,” said Clementina.