“You understand, now,” continued she, “why the Empress has summoned you to this death-chamber. It is needful that you should see it with your own eyes, and to-morrow would have been too late.” “Not a feature of it has escaped me,” said Wilfrid. And, indeed, he was confident that if he should live for a century the aspect of the little bedroom would never fade from his mind. “Besides the ministers,” she continued, “there are others to be made a mark for public hatred.” “Among them being——?” “Pauline de Vaucluse.” Wilfrid turned upon her a look of wonder. “The Baroness was not with the assassins.” “In spirit she was. She was the very soul of the plot. The conspirators, aiming as they thought for a better Government, were in reality dupes, ministering to her selfish and wicked ends.” Wilfrid frowned. Selfish and wicked? He did not like to hear such terms in connection with Pauline, whose character he thought he understood much better than did the Duchess. “I fail to see what she has personally gained by Paul’s death.” “Her reward, so she hopes, is yet to come.” The Duchess, as she spoke, compressed her lips with an air which plainly said that the reward, whatever it might be, would not come if _she_ could prevent it. “I greatly fear,” said Wilfrid, taking a decisive stand, “that even were I persuaded that Pauline de Vaucluse was the wickedest of all the conspirators, I could not treat her in the way you suggest.” “Why, you must love her!” Her tone implied pitying scorn for any one who could be captivated by a Pauline de Vaucluse. “My sentiment toward the Baroness is not love, but friendship. Caring nothing for Paul’s anger she rescued me from the hands of his soldiers. Shall I then requite her good deed by holding her up to the people’s hate? No, I cannot do that, your Highness.” “She ran no risk. It suited her to play the heroine, knowing that Paul was to die that same night. But I speak to deaf ears, I see.” And then abruptly changing the subject, she added:— “Lord Courtenay, the Empress bids you ask a reward for your coming service.” It somewhat piqued Wilfrid to think that the Empress should hold him as one incapable of doing a just and generous deed without hope of payment. She was forgetting that he was an Englishman, and a Courtenay. “Ah, yes! my reward,” he murmured, wondering what answer to make. Then, all in a moment, a romantic and daring idea suggested itself. “The reward I claim—nay, insist upon—is one that the Empress cannot give. It must come from you.” “From _me_?” she said, in a tone that somehow thrilled Wilfrid to the heart. “It is that if I succeed in deposing the Ministry, you will give me——” “What?” as he hesitated. “A kiss.” Strange that it cost Wilfrid a greater effort to say these two little words than it did to face the fiery Paul. But the Duchess! First she drew a sharp breath; then she started back, in her eyes a look of anger so deep that it made Wilfrid almost regret his bold request.