‘It is evident to me,’ he said at length, ‘that you have a strong personal interest in the new Queen of Servia, and that you are a man who is to be trusted. That being so, I will explain to you frankly my position. I have friends in Servia who desire to see the restoration of my dynasty, and derive much confidence from the misconduct of this youth in whom the Obrenovitch line terminates. ‘Their reports reach me regularly, and I am therefore able to anticipate their plans to some extent. But I have resolved that if I am ever to seat myself on the Servian throne, I must keep my hands clean. For that reason I have never committed myself by approving any of the measures contemplated on my behalf. ‘If Masileff really told you he never heard from me, he told you the actual truth. I have never yet returned any answer to any of the communications I receive almost weekly from Belgrade. To that rule I must adhere. All I can promise you is this, that if hereafter I receive any information which convinces me that the life of the Countess Draga is in danger, I will at once break silence, and send a peremptory order to my friends that she is to be allowed to leave the country in safety.’ I thanked the Servian prince for this pledge, which was all I had any right to expect. The claimant to a Crown could hardly be asked to veto all attempts on his behalf on the mere chance that some of them might endanger the lives of the reigning family. I returned to Paris, and sought to distract myself in my work from brooding over the tragedy which seemed to be shaping itself in the Servian capital. As we had both foreseen, Queen Draga incurred the obloquy of the world by marrying Alexander. Her reputation was sacrificed to his, and I believe that she deliberately posed as the instigator of all his violent and injudicious measures, in the hope of acting, so to speak, as a conductor of the popular wrath, and thereby saving her husband. Had she been able at the same time to wean Alexander from his wild passion for herself, he and his dynasty might have been preserved. It is the charitable view to take that the young King was not fully responsible for his acts at this time. The distressing circumstances of his bringing-up, the fatal inheritance of his father’s example and influence, render it impossible to regard Alexander Obrenovitch as a normal young man. The long period of suspense which I passed through, while watching from Paris over the safety of the Queen of Servia, was at last put an end to by a cypher telegram from the agent whom I had stationed in Belgrade unknown even to Draga herself. ‘_Death of King fixed for next week. Queen must be persuaded to fly at once._’ The despatch reached me just half an hour before the departure of the Oriental express, into which I flung myself panting as it began to glide out of the station. My agent, warned from Vienna, met me as I alighted in Belgrade.