“Both Your Grace and Mr. Haviland,” the man replied.  “He wished me to say that the matter was of the utmost importance.”

The Duke rose at once and glanced at the clock.

“It is an extraordinary hour,” he remarked, “for Heseltine to be wanting us.  Shall we go and see what it means, Haviland?  You will excuse us, Prince?”

The Prince bowed.

“I think that we have talked enough of serious affairs tonight,” he said.  “I shall challenge Sir Edward to a game of billiards.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.  UNAFRAID

The Prince, still fully attired, save that in place of his dress coat he wore a loose smoking jacket, stood at the windows of his sitting room at Devenham Castle, looking across the park.  In the somewhat fitful moonlight the trees had taken to themselves grotesque shapes.  Away in the distance the glimmer of the sea shone like a thin belt of quicksilver.  The stable clock had struck two.  The whole place seemed at rest.  Only one light was gleaming from a long low building which had been added to the coach houses of recent years for a motor garage.  That one light, the Prince knew, was on his account.  There his chauffeur waited, untiring and sleepless, with his car always ready for that last rush to the coast, the advisability of which the Prince had considered more than once during the last twenty-four hours.  The excitement of the evening, the excitement of his unwonted outburst, was still troubling him.  It was not often that he had so far overstepped the bounds which his natural caution, his ever-present self-restraint, imposed upon him.  He paced restlessly to and fro from the sitting room to the bedroom and back again.  He had told the truth,—­the bare, simple truth.  He had seen the letters of fire in the sky, and he had read them to these people because of their kindness, because of a certain affection which he bore them.  To them it must have sounded like a man speaking in a strange tongue.  They had not understood.  Perhaps, even, they would not believe in the absolute sincerity of his motives.  Again he paused at the window and looked over the park to that narrow, glittering stretch of sea.  Why should he not for once forget the traditions of his race, the pride which kept him there to face the end!  There was still time.  The cruiser which the Emperor had sent was waiting for him in Southampton Harbor.  In twenty-four hours he would be in foreign waters.  He thought of these things earnestly, even wistfully, and yet he knew that he could not go.  Perhaps they would be glad of an opportunity of getting rid of him now that he had spoken his mind.  In any case, right was on their side.  The end, if it must come, was simple enough!

He turned away from the window with a little shrug of the shoulders.  Even as he did so, there came a faint knocking at the door.  His servant had already retired.  For a moment it seemed to him that it could mean but one thing.  While he hesitated, the handle was softly turned and the door opened.  To his amazement, it was Penelope who stood upon the threshold.