To remain inactive any longer was beyond her electrified nerves. She regarded Maria Leopoldina’s authority as at an end, and it was evident that the shaken Obersthofmeisterin was of the same opinion, for she had dragged herself to her room, and was seen no more that day. Ranata sent an invitation to the captain and the officers of the yacht to lunch at the castle. They lowered the flags and returned with the messenger; and although there was an animated party in the little dining-room up-stairs, all her subtle questioning was able to extract were the bare facts that on the previous evening they had received orders from their master in Vienna to proceed in the morning to Miramar, run up the two flags as they anchored off the castle, and not to lower them until they had received some answering signal from her. They were naïvely curious, and, face to face with the Archduchess beloved of their chief, frankly suspicious of the sequel. It was evident, however, that her information was more meagre than theirs, and they were so glad to get back to the tonic sweetness of the Adriatic after their fortnight at Venice, most malodorous of cities, and so enchanted with this beautiful princess and her castle, that they were content without knowledge, Yankees though they were. After luncheon Ranata took them for a walk through the gardens and woods of the park, keeping them until they bored her, for she dreaded solitude and looked forward to the night with terror. But before the night came her nerves were to be lifted from the rack. XXXVI It was sundown and she stood on the terrace before the windows of the state dining-room on the eastern side of the castle, watching the shadows darken the woods rising almost perpendicularly before her. She heard the train go by high on the mountain, and sighed impatiently. She was at liberty to take any train up there she wished, and here she must remain in maddening unquiet. She even felt some impatience with Fessenden, who surely might have sent her a telegram.