“You are confident that the country’s honour is safe!” she repeated bitterly; “I am confident that it is betrayed and shamed! And History will set a curse against the King who helped in its downfall!” He regarded her with a vague, lingering gentleness. “You are harsh, Madame!” he said softly; “But you could not offend me if you tried! I quarrel with none of your sex! And you will, I hope, think better of me some day,--and not be sorry--as perhaps you are now--for having saved a life so worthless! Farewell!” She offered no response. The silken portière rustled and swayed,--the door opened and shut again quietly--he was gone. Left alone, Lotys dropped wearily on the sofa, and burying her head in the soft cushions, gave way to an outburst of tears and sobbed like a tired and exhausted child. In this condition Professor von Glauben, entering presently, found her. But his sympathy, if he felt any, was outwardly very chill and formal. Another dose of his ‘cordial,’--a careful examination and re-strapping of the wounded shoulder,--these summed up the whole of his consolation; and his precise cold manner did much to restore her to her self-possession. She thanked him in a few words for his professional attention, without raising her eyes to his face, and quietly followed him down a long narrow passage which terminated in a small private door giving egress to the Royal pleasure-grounds,--and here a hired close carriage was waiting. Putting her carefully into this vehicle, the Professor then delivered himself of his last instructions. “The driver has no orders beyond the citadel, Madame,” he explained. “His Majesty begged me to say that he has no desire to seem inquisitive as to your place of residence. You will therefore please inform the coachman yourself as to where you wish to be driven. And take care of that so-much-wounded shoulder!” he added, relapsing into a kinder and less formal tone;--“It will pain you,--but there will be no inflammation, not now I have treated it!--and it will heal quickly, that I will guarantee--I, who have had first care of it!” She thanked him again in a low voice,--there was an uncomfortable lump in her throat, and tears still trembled on her lashes. “Remember well,” said the Professor cheerily; “how very grateful we are to you! What we shall do for you some day, we do not yet know! A monument in the public square, or a bust in the Cathedral? Ha, ha! Goodbye! You have the blessing of the nation with you!” She shook her head deprecatingly,--she tried to smile, but she could not trust herself to speak. The carriage rolled swiftly down the broad avenue and soon disappeared, and the Professor, having watched the last flash of its wheels vanish between the arching trees, executed a slow and somewhat solemn _pas-seul_ on the doorstep where it had left him.