“Let us be friends,” he said.  “You shall be my guest at Blentz for a long time.  I doubt if Peter will care to release you soon, for he has no love for your father—­and it will be easier for both if we establish pleasant relations from the beginning.  What do you say?”

“I shall not be at Blentz long,” she replied, not even looking in Maenck’s direction, “though while I am it shall be as a prisoner and not as a guest.  It is incredible that one could believe me willing to pose as the guest of a traitor, even were he less impossible than the notorious and infamous Captain Maenck.”

Maenck smiled.  He was one of those who rather pride themselves upon the possession of racy reputations.  He walked across the room to a bell cord which he pulled.  Then he turned toward the girl again.

“I have given you an opportunity,” he said, “to lighten the burdens of your captivity.  I hoped that you would be sensible and accept my advances of friendship voluntarily,” and he emphasized the word “voluntarily,” “but—­”

He shrugged his shoulders.

A servant had entered the apartment in response to Maenck’s summons.

“Show the Princess von der Tann to her apartments,” he commanded with a sinister tone.

The man, who was in the livery of Peter of Blentz, bowed, and with a deferential sign to the girl led the way from the room.  Emma von der Tann followed her guide up a winding stairway which spiraled within a tower at the end of a long passage.  On the second floor of the castle the servant led her to a large and beautifully furnished suite of three rooms—­a bedroom, dressing-room and boudoir.  After showing her the rooms that were to be hers the servant left her alone.

As soon as he had gone the Princess von der Tann took another turn through the suite, looking to the doors and windows to ascertain how securely she might barricade herself against unwelcome visitors.

She found that the three rooms lay in an angle of the old, moss-covered castle wall.

The bedroom and dressing-room were connected by a doorway, and each in turn had another door opening into the boudoir.  The only connection with the corridor without was through a single doorway from the boudoir.  This door was equipped with a massive bolt, which, when she had shot it, gave her a feeling of immense relief and security.  The windows were all too high above the court on one side and the moat upon the other to cause her the slightest apprehension of danger from the outside.

The girl found the boudoir not only beautiful, but extremely comfortable and cozy.  A huge log-fire blazed upon the hearth, and, though it was summer, its warmth was most welcome, for the night was chill.  Across the room from the fireplace a full length oil of a former Blentz princess looked down in arrogance upon the unwilling occupant of the room.  It seemed to the girl that there was an expression of annoyance upon the painted countenance that another, and an enemy of her house, should be making free with her belongings.  She wondered a little, too, that this huge oil should have been bung in a lady’s boudoir.  It seemed singularly out of place.