“The reason that I fear to have you go to the village,” she said, “is that I am quite sure they would catch you and shave off your beard.”

Barney started to laugh, but when he saw the deep seriousness of the girl’s eyes he changed his mind.  Then he recalled her rather peculiar insistence that he was a king, and it suddenly occurred to him that he had been foolish not to have guessed the truth before.

“That is so,” he agreed; “I guess we had better do as you say,” for he had determined that the best way to handle her would be to humor her—­he had always heard that that was the proper method for handling the mentally defective.  “Where is the—­er—­ah—­sanatorium?” he blurted out at last.

“The what?” she asked.  “There is no sanatorium near here, your majesty, unless you refer to the Castle of Blentz.”

“Is there no asylum for the insane near by?”

“None that I know of, your majesty.”

For a while they moved on in silence, each wondering what the other might do next.

Barney had evolved a plan.  He would try and ascertain the location of the institution from which the girl had escaped and then as gently as possible lead her back to it.  It was not safe for as beautiful a woman as she to be roaming through the forest in any such manner as this.  He wondered what in the world the authorities at the asylum had been thinking of to permit her to ride out alone in the first place.

“From where did you ride today?” he blurted out suddenly.

“From Tann.”

“That is where we are going now?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Barney drew a breath of relief.  The way had become suddenly difficult and he took the girl’s arm to help her down a rather steep place.  At the bottom of the ravine there was a little brook.

“There used to be a fallen log across it here,” said the girl.  “How in the world am I ever to get across, your majesty?”

“If you call me that again, I shall begin to believe that I am a king,” he humored her, “and then, being a king, I presume that it wouldn’t be proper for me to carry you across, or would it?  Never really having been a king, I do not know.”

“I think,” replied the girl, “that it would be eminently proper.”

She had difficulty in keeping in mind the fact that this handsome, smiling young man was a dangerous maniac, though it was easy to believe that he was the king.  In fact, he looked much as she had always pictured Leopold as looking.  She had known him as a boy, and there were many paintings and photographs of his ancestors in her father’s castle.  She saw much resemblance between these and the young man.

The brook was very narrow, and the girl thought that it took the young man an unreasonably long time to carry her across, though she was forced to admit that she was far from uncomfortable in the strong arms that bore her so easily.

“Why, what are you doing?” she cried presently.  “You are not crossing the stream at all.  You are walking right up the middle of it!”