“It looks so peaceful up there,” she said at last.

“But so cold and cheerless,” he added, drearily.  There was another long silence in which two hearts communed through the medium of that faraway sentinel.  “They have not discovered a clue to the chief abductor, have they?” he asked, in an effort to return to his proper sphere.

“Baron Dangloss believes he has a clue—­a meager and unsatisfactory one, he admits—­and to-day sent officers to Ganlook to investigate the actions of a strange man who was there last week, a man who styled himself the Count of Arabazon, and who claimed to be of Vienna.  Some Austrians had been hunting stags and bears in the north, however, and it is possible he is one of them.”  She spoke slowly, her eyes still bent on the home of the monks.

“Your highness, I have a theory, a bold and perhaps a criminal theory, but you will allow me to tell you why I am possessed of it.  I am aware that there is a Prince Gabriel.  It is my opinion that no Viennese is guilty, nor are the brigands to be accused of this masterpiece in crime.  Have you thought how far a man may go to obtain his heart’s desire?”

She looked at him instantly, her eyes wide with growing comprehension, the solution to the mystery darting into her mind like a flash.

“You mean—­” she began, stopping as if afraid to voice the suspicion.

“That Prince Gabriel is the man who bought your guards and hired Geddos and Ostrom to carry you to the place where he could own you, whether you would or no,” said Lorry.

“But he could never have forced me to marry him, and I should, sooner or later, have exposed him,” she whispered, argumentatively.  “He could not expect me to be silent and submit to a marriage under such circumstances.  He knows that I would denounce him, even at the altar.”

“You do not appreciate my estimate of that gentleman.”

“What is to become of me!” she almost sobbed, in an anguish of fear.  “I see now—­I see plainly!  It was Gabriel, and he would have done as you say.”  A shudder ran through her figure and he tenderly whispered in her ear: 

“The danger is past.  He can do no more, your Highness.  Were I positive that he is the man—­and I believe he is—­I would hunt him down this night.”

Her eyes closed happily under his gaze, her hand dropped timidly from his arm and a sweet sense of security filled her soul.

“I am not afraid,” she murmured.

“Because I am here?” he asked, bending nearer.

“Because God can bless with the same hand that punishes,” she answered, enigmatically, lifting her lashes again and looking into his eyes with a love at last unmasked.  “He gives me a man to love and denies me happiness.  He makes of me a woman, but He does not unmake me a princess.  Through you, He thwarts a villain; through you, He crushes the innocent.  More than ever, I thank you for coming into my life.  You and you alone, guided by the God who loves and despises me, saved me from Gabriel.”