"Weidenbruck is in a condition of anarchy. You left me as a dictator, but you deprived me of a dictator's only argument--force. You drained the city of troops, and you expected me to impose my will on that turbulent and sinful community. My will was to purify the _stadt_. My men raided the gambling-houses round the Goose-market; they harried the infamous dens of the Hahngasse. I closed the Mailand Kurhaus and that other haunt of immorality, the Augustus Café. For forty-eight hours virtue triumphed, and the worst features of my native town began to disappear with exhilarating rapidity. Then the forces of sin and debauchery put their evil heads together, and the reaction began. My police were suborned. The cry was raised that a worse tyranny than Karl's had been inaugurated. Rumours that Karl was holding his own and more began to be disseminated in the capital. It was whispered that guilty relations had been established between the young Queen and the accursed American. There was a riot. I called out the soldiers, but they were too few and not over willing. The people who had hounded Karl from his throne cheered his name in the same streets where they had sought his blood. I am no coward, but I was appalled. To calm the tempest would have needed an army corps." "Or Father Bernhardt," interrupted Trafford. "Anyway, I fled," the doctor resumed, "because I saw how imperative it was that you should return as soon as you had won your victory." "And left the city to anarchy?" put in Gloria. "I left the sons of worthlessness to their own confusion." "Dr. Matti," said Bernhardt, "you are one of those amiable beings who have theories. If you had amused the Weidenbruckers,--or even let them amuse themselves,--all might have been well. Instead, however, you tried to turn them into angels,--a role which Providence has not assigned to any community east of Berlin." "I meant well----" "That is what I complain of," interrupted Bernhardt. "But the situation is only temporarily serious," interposed the hapless doctor. "When you have captured Weissheim----" "When we have captured Weissheim," said Trafford. "Unfortunately we are about a quarter of a mile further from Weissheim than we were two hours ago. And two hours hence we shall very probably be further still." "Good heavens! You----" "We are like you, Dr. Matti," went on Trafford. "We have had a failure; like you, we over-rated our own skill and under-rated our enemies'. The situation is bad."