Finally she demanded of Maria Leopoldina--blissfully ignorant of the tragedies enacting within the hard exterior of her charge--a sleeping-potion; and the stewardess, when she returned with it, brought also the information that as a hasty marriage would undoubtedly cause a scandal exactly similar to that which had entertained Europe upon the informal exit into matrimony of the late wife of the Archduke Aloys Franz, it had been determined that the ceremony should not take place until two months hence. The official announcement of the engagement would be made presently, however, and until the day of the wedding she must remain in her rooms. “Why, now that Mr. Abbott has gone?” asked Ranata. “Why deprive me of my liberty when I could make no use of it?” “I cannot say, my dear,” answered Maria Leopoldina. “It would not take him long to come back, you know; and then you have not given your formal consent to marriage with Aloys.” “That is a point I had quite forgotten,” said Ranata dryly. “I hope my father and my prospective husband are not unduly impatient.” On the following day, after the surcease of the sleeping-powder, and the inevitable reaction from many days of torment, she felt almost light-hearted and frivolous, and wondered if it were possible to suffer like that more than once in a lifetime. Passing a window her eye was idly attracted by the shabby figure of a tourist. It was a bright winter’s day, and visitors to the great capital came to look at the fine bronze of old Emperor Franz and the gilded wall where the drawbridge had been. Ranata envied them deeply, nameless as no doubt they were--she had a vague idea that all sight-seers were a composite with a number--for they had their precious liberty, no doubt belonged to such free and happy countries as England and America. This insignificant little woman carried a Baedeker, which she read industriously, walking round and round the statue, with but an occasional upward glance at the work of art. Alexandra had told Ranata of tourists who read their Baedekers on the Rhine, forgetting to look at the historic monuments described, and she watched this illustration with some amusement. Suddenly her brows met, and she drew closer to the window. There was something oddly familiar in the little deliberate steps, in the fashion of opening and closing the book. And this tourist had been here on other days, when her brain was too surcharged to piece impression to thought! In a moment the girl paused with her back to the window, and, raising her hand, nervously twisted a curl on the right of her neck. It was Vilma Festetics.