Experience, however, had taught the princess that, not unfrequently, orders apparently obeyed were afterwards secretly evaded; and the disregard paid of late to her letters of complaint satisfied her that they were stifled and suppressed by the governor. Paulina, therefore, whom a few hours of unrestrained intercourse had made interesting to her heart, she would not suffer even to sleep apart from herself. Her own agitation on the poor prisoner's behalf became greater even than that of Paulina; and as fresh circumstances of suspicion daily arose in the savage governor's deportment, she now took in good earnest those measures for escape to Klosterheim which she had long arranged. In this purpose she was greatly assisted by the absolute authority which her father had conceded to her over everything but the mere military arrangements in the fortress. Under the color of an excursion, such as she had been daily accustomed to take, she found no difficulty in placing Paulina, sufficiently disguised, amongst her own servants. At a proper point of the road, Paulina and a few attendants, with the princess herself, issued from their coaches, and, bidding them await their return in half an hour's interval, by that time were far advanced upon their road to the military post of Falkenberg. CHAPTER XXIV. In twenty days the mysterious Masque had summoned the Landgrave "to answer for crimes unatoned, before a tribunal where no power but that of innocence could avail him." These days were nearly expired. The morning of the twentieth had arrived. There were two interpretations of this summons. By many it was believed that the tribunal contemplated was that of the emperor; and that, by some mysterious plot, which could not be more difficult of execution than others which had actually been accomplished by The Masque, on this day the Landgrave would be carried off to Vienna. Others, again, understanding by the tribunal, in the same sense, the imperial chamber of criminal justice, believed it possible to fulfil the summons in some way less liable to delay or uncertainty than by a long journey to Vienna, through a country beset with enemies. But a third party, differing from both the others, understood by the tribunal where innocence was the only shield the judgment-seat of heaven; and believed that on this day justice would be executed on the Landgrave, for crimes known and unknown, by a public and memorable death. Under any interpretation, however, nobody amongst the citizens could venture peremptorily to deny, after the issue of the masqued ball, and of so many other public denunciations, that The Masque would keep his word to the letter.