The other picked up his watch.  “Can I be of material assistance?”

“I want nothing,” haughtily.

“Proud old imbecile!” replied the mountaineer kindly.  “You have been deeply wronged, but some day you will pick up the thread in the labyrinth, and there will be light forward.  I myself shall see what can be done with the duke.”

“He will never be brought to reason unless indubitable evidence of my innocence confronts him.  With the restoration of the princess fifty political prisoners were given their liberty and restored to citizenship.  The place once occupied by my name is still blank, obliterated.  It is hard.  I have given the best of my heart and of my brain to Ehrenstein—­for this!  I am innocent.”

“I believe you, Carl.  Remember, Jugendheit will always welcome you.  I must be going.  I have much to do between now and midnight.  The good God will unravel the snarl.”

“Or forget it,” cynically.  “Good-by, Ludwig.”

There was a hand-clasp, and the mountaineer took himself off.  The clock-mender philosophically reached for his tools.  He had wasted time enough over retrospection; he determined to occupy himself with the present only.  Tick-tock! tick-tock! sang the clocks about him.  All at once a volume of musical sounds broke forth; cuckoo-calls, chimes, tinkles light and thin, booms deep and vibrant.  But the clock-mender bent over his work; all he was conscious of was the eternal tick-tock! tick-tock! on and on, without cessation.

* * * * *

Carmichael walked his horse.  This morning he had ridden out almost to the frontier and was now on his return.  As he passed through the last grove of pines and came into the clearing the picture was exquisite; the three majestic bergs of ice and snow above Dreiberg, the city shining white and fairylike in the mid-morning’s sun, and the long, half-circling ribbon of a road.  He sighed, and the horse cocked his ears at the sound.

No longer did Carmichael take the south pass for his morning rides.  That was the favored going of her highness, and he avoided her now.  In truth, he dared not meet her now; it would have been out of wisdom.  So long as she had been free his presence had caused no comment, only tolerant amusement among the nobles at court.  It chafed him to be regarded as a harmless individual, for he knew that he was far from being in that class.  There was a wild strain in him.  Dreiberg might have waked up some fine morning to learn that for a second time her princess had been stolen, and that there was a vacancy in the American consulate.  How many times had he been seized with the mad desire to snatch the bridle of her horse and ride away with her into a far country!  How often had his arms started out toward her, only to drop stiffly to his sides!