‘Such is the gratitude of peoples,’ said the Baron. ‘But we trifle. Here, madam, are my plain thoughts. The man who in the hour of danger speaks of abdication is, for me, a venomous animal. I speak with the bluntness of gravity, madam; this is no hour for mincing. The coward, in a station of authority, is more dangerous than fire. We dwell on a volcano; if this man can have his way, Grünewald before a week will have been deluged with innocent blood. You know the truth of what I say; we have looked unblenching into this ever-possible catastrophe. To him it is nothing: he will abdicate! Abdicate, just God! and this unhappy country committed to his charge, and the lives of men and the honour of women . . .’ His voice appeared to fail him; in an instant he had conquered his emotion and resumed: ‘But you, madam, conceive more worthily of your responsibilities. I am with you in the thought; and in the face of the horrors that I see impending, I say, and your heart repeats it—we have gone too far to pause. Honour, duty, ay, and the care of our own lives, demand we should proceed.’ She was looking at him, her brow thoughtfully knitted. ‘I feel it,’ she said. ‘But how? He has the power.’ ‘The power, madam? The power is in the army,’ he replied; and then hastily, ere she could intervene, ‘we have to save ourselves,’ he went on; ‘I have to save my Princess, she has to save her minister; we have both of us to save this infatuated youth from his own madness. He in the outbreak would be the earliest victim; I see him,’ he cried, ‘torn in pieces; and Grünewald, unhappy Grünewald! Nay, madam, you who have the power must use it; it lies hard upon your conscience.’ ‘Show me how!’ she cried. ‘Suppose I were to place him under some constraint, the revolution would break upon us instantly.’ The Baron feigned defeat. ‘It is true,’ he said. ‘You see more clearly than I do. Yet there should, there must be, some way.’ And he waited for his chance. ‘No,’ she said; ‘I told you from the first there is no remedy. Our hopes are lost: lost by one miserable trifler, ignorant, fretful, fitful—who will have disappeared to-morrow, who knows? to his boorish pleasures!’ Any peg would do for Gondremark. ‘The thing!’ he cried, striking his brow. ‘Fool, not to have thought of it! Madam, without perhaps knowing it, you have solved our problem.’ ‘What do you mean? Speak!’ she said. He appeared to collect himself; and then, with a smile, ‘The Prince,’ he said, ‘must go once more a-hunting.’ ‘Ay, if he would!’ cried she, ‘and stay there!’