“There is all that is left of the Princess Lamballe,” said Pauline, her eyes set with a stony grief, a grief too deep for tears. “We were brought up from girlhood together. She was my dearest friend. She was young; she was beautiful; she was good. And you know her end? Taken to the prison of La Force, her only crime being that she was a friend of the Queen’s, she was flung forth from the prison-gate into the hands of a howling mob. And then.... My God! it will not bear thinking of.... Pieces of the body put on the end of pikes were paraded through the streets.... Some found their way to the tanyard....” Overcome by the recollection, she was silent for a few moments, and when she spoke again it was in a mood fierce and dark. “Do you wonder now why I hate the Republic? Let my father serve it, if he will. For my part, I work for its downfall.” It was clear to Wilfrid from this, as well as from previous remarks made by her, that the one passionate aim of Pauline’s life was the subversion of the Republic and the restoration of the Bourbons, an aim laudable enough in itself, were she any other than she was, but scarcely compatible with her position as the daughter of the Ambassador of the French Republic. “To work for its downfall,” she repeated. “And I shall succeed,” she continued, with a smile as of coming triumph. “Mark me,” she added, “smile, doubt, call it vaunting, if you will, but when the secret history of to-day comes to be written, it will be found that I, Pauline de Vaucluse, Baroness of Runö, have been the chief cause of Bonaparte’s downfall.” But when Wilfrid asked in what way she intended to accomplish this, he was met by a tantalising shake of her head. However strange her words, there was in her manner something which led him to believe that they were no mere boast. Still, great as was his desire to witness the fulfilment of them, he did not like to see a daughter working in opposition to her father, especially if—he trusted he was not wronging her by the supposition—she should be availing herself of the political secrets acquired by her residence in the Embassy. However, being as yet not sufficiently advanced in her friendship, he refrained from taking upon himself the office of Mentor. At a sign from the Baroness, her maid, Vera, withdrew, returning with a bright samovar or tea-urn. “Do you take sugar?” asked Pauline, who seemed to have recovered from the gloom occasioned by her reminiscences. “Yes? I fear I can offer you none but Barth’s.” “And who is Barth?” “A man who is making his fortune out of beetroot. We have to rely upon him ever since Paul forbade the import of your colonial sugar.” “It seems to me,” grumbled Wilfrid, “that this Paul lays his despotic finger upon every department of life.”