Gabriel’s eyes deadened with disappointment, his breast heaved and his fingers twitched.

“I have the happiness of your Sovereign at heart as much as my own,” he said.  “She shall never want for devotion, she shall never know a pain.”

“You are determined, then, to adhere to your original proposition?” demanded the Count.

“She would have married Lorenz to save her land, to protect her people.  Am I not as good as Lorenz?  Why not give—­” began Gabriel, viciously, but Yetive arose, and, with gleaming eyes and flushing cheeks, interrupted him.

“Go!  I will not hear you—­not one word!”

He passed from the room without another word.  Her Court saw her standing straight and immovable, her white face transfigured.

XIII

THE VISITOR AT MIDNIGHT

Below the castle and its distressed occupants, in a dark, damp little room, Grenfall Lorry lived a year in a day.  On the night of the eighteenth, or rather near the break of dawn on the nineteenth, Captain Quinnox guided him from the dangerous streets of Edelweiss to the secret passage, and he was safe for the time being.  The entrance to the passage was through a skillfully hidden opening in the wall that enclosed the park.  A stone doorway, so cleverly constructed that it defied detection, led to a set of steps which, in turn, took one to a long narrow passage.  This ended in a stairway fully a quarter of a mile from its beginning.  Ascending this stairway one came to a secret panel, through which, by pressing a spring, the interior of the castle was reached.  The location of the panel was in one of the recesses in the wall of the chapel, near the altar.  It was in this chapel that Yetive exchanged her male attire for a loose gown, weeks before, and the servant who saw her come from the door at an unearthly hour in the morning believed she had gone there to seek surcease from the troubles which oppressed her.

Lorry was impatient to rush forth from his place of hiding and to end all suspense, but Quinnox demurred.  He begged the eager American to remain in the passage until the night of the nineteenth, when, all things going well, he might be so fortunate as to reach the Princess without being seen.  It was the secret hope of the guilty captain that his charge could be induced by the Princess to return to the monastery, to avoid complications.  He promised to inform Her Highness of his presence in the underground room and to arrange for a meeting.  The miserable fellow could not find courage to confess his disobedience to his trusting mistress.  Many times during the day she had seen him hovering near, approaching and then retreating, and had wondered not a little at his peculiar manner.