"If it should be known," said the Marshal, "that your Majesty had banished Prince Mirliflor's chosen bride, there would be such an outcry that it might cost you your Kingdom." "Oh, do you really think that, Marshal? But it _is_ so essential that she should be sent to England! Surely it can be managed somehow without any scandal?" "There _is_ a way, Madam, if your Majesty is prepared to take it." "I am prepared to do anything, Marshal--that is, _almost_ anything. What do you advise?" "Your Majesty should inform the Baron that, the Court Godmother being unhappily too indisposed to act as guardian to Lady Daphne, you desire him to convey her in the stork-car to Clairdelune and place her under the care of Prince Mirliflor." "But, my dear good Marshal, that's the very _last_ thing I desire!" "I know, Madam, I know. But it is what he should represent to the Court and Lady Daphne, and he is more likely to do so if he believes it to be the fact. I will give him sealed instructions which he is not to open till after he is started, directing him to take her--not to Clairdelune, but to the land of her birth. Your Majesty will be good enough to write such instructions at once." "It seems simple, and yet, Marshal, I'm not quite sure," demurred the Queen. "The Baron is an old dear, but just a bit of a chatterbox. He might let the whole thing out when he gets back!" "He will not get back," said the Marshal. "I know a certain drug that I will administer to the storks before the journey. It is slow to act, and will not affect them until after they have reached the country that you call England. But they will never leave it again. And then it will merely be supposed that he has acted treacherously." "I see," said Queen Selina. "Yes, I should be perfectly safe _then_. If there was any _other_ way, or I didn't feel so strongly that it was really a kindness to Miss Heritage to save her from occupying a position she is so unsuited to, I really don't think I _could_. But I suppose I must do as you suggest." She wrote the order, which she signed and sealed and handed to him. "I shouldn't like her to be left stranded in England without any means of support, Marshal," she said. "_That_ would be a thing I could _not_ reconcile to my conscience. So you will kindly see that she is supplied with a sack of gold." "That will be a truly royal act of generosity," he said, "especially as I understand the number of sacks in your Majesty's treasury is by no means large just now." "I was forgetting. On second thoughts, perhaps you had better make it a _purse_ instead," she amended. "It will keep her while she is looking out for another situation." "No doubt. And it would be wise, I think, if your Majesty would speed her departure with your good wishes in presence of the Court."