“If that be so, then he must also be aware that I am his sworn enemy!” she said,--“And, that in accordance with the principles I hold, I cannot possibly remain under his roof! Therefore I trust, sir, you will have the kindness to provide me with a way of quick exit before my presence here becomes too publicly reported.” The Professor was slightly nonplussed. He considered for a moment; then rapidly made up his mind. “Madame, I will do so!” he said--“That is, if you will permit me first of all to announce your intention of leaving the Palace, to the King. Pardon me for suggesting that his Majesty can hardly regard as an enemy a lady who has saved his life at the risk of her own.” “I did not save it because he is the King,” she said curtly, “And you are at liberty to tell him so. Please make haste to inform him at once of my desire to leave the Palace,--and say also, that if he considers he owes me any gratitude, he will show it by not detaining me.” The Professor bowed and retired. Lotys, left alone, sat down for a moment in one of the luxuriously cushioned chairs, and pressed her left hand hard over her eyes to try and still their throbbing ache. Her right arm was bound up and useless,--and the pain from the wound in her shoulder caused her acute agony,--but she had a will of iron, and she had trained her mental forces to control, if not entirely to master, her physical weaknesses. She thought, not of her own suffering, but of the exciting incident in which mere impulse had led her to take so marked a share. It was by pure accident that she had joined the crowd assembled to see the King lay the foundation-stone of the proposed new Theatre. She had been as it were, entangled in the press of the people, and had got pushed towards the centre of the scene almost against her own volition. And while she had stood,--a passive and unwilling spectator of the pageant,--her attention had been singularly attracted towards the uneasy and restless movements of the youth who had afterwards attempted the assassination of the monarch. She had watched him narrowly; though she could not have explained why she did so, even to herself. He was a complete stranger to her, and yet, with her quick intuition, she had discerned a curious expression of anxiety and fear in his face, as though of the impending horror of a crime,--a look which, because it was so strained and unnatural, had aroused her suspicion. When she had sprung forward to shield the King, only one idea had inspired her,--and that idea she would not now fully own even to herself, because it was so entirely, weakly feminine. Nevertheless, from woman’s weakness has often sprung a hero’s strength--and so it had proved in this case. She did not, however, allow herself to dwell on the instinctive impulse which had thrown her on the King’s breast, ready to receive her own death-blow rather than that he should die; she preferred to elude that question,