“Madame, I am twice honoured!” he said, in accents that shook ever so slightly--“To resemble a good man even outwardly is something,--to wear in any degree the lineaments of one whom a brave and true woman honours by her love is still more! You have made me very much your debtor”--here he gently relinquished the hand he had kissed--“but believe me, I shall endeavour most faithfully to meet the claim you have upon my gratitude!” Here he paused, and drawing back, bowed courteously. “The way for your departure is clear,” he continued;--“I have ordered a carriage to be in waiting at one of the private entrances to the Palace. Professor von Glauben, my physician, who has just attended you, will escort you to it. You will pass out quite unnoticed,--and be,--as you desire it--again at full liberty. Let the memory of the King whose life you saved trouble you no more,--except when you look upon his better counterpart!--as then, perchance, you may think more kindly of him! For he has to suffer!--not so much for his own faults, as for the faults of a system formulated by his ancestors.” Her intense eyes glowed with a fire of enthusiasm as she lifted them to his face. “Kingship would be a grand system,” she said, “if kings were true! And Autocracy would be the best and noblest form of government in the world, if autocrats could be found who were intellectual and honest at one and the same time!” He looked at her observantly. “You think they are neither?” “_I_ think? ‘I’ am nothing,--my opinions count for nothing! But History gives evidence, and supplies proof of their incompetency. A great king,--good as well as great,--would be the salvation of this present time of the world!” Still he kept his eyes upon her. “Go on!”--he said--“There is something in your mind which you would fain express to me more openly. You have eloquent features, Madame!--and your looks are the candid mirror of your thoughts. Speak, I beg of you!” The light of a daring inward hope flashed in her face and inspired her very attitude, as she stood before him, entirely regardless of herself.