“I will stay, Ernestine--if you ask me,” he replied at last. He spoke without enthusiasm, but with the desperate resolution to atone by one tremendous sacrifice for his past sins against her. “But I don’t ask you. You must go--at once, if it is necessary. But come to me before you start, and tell me what has happened. Messieurs,” she turned again to Mr Hicks and Mansfield, “I regret to have had so little conversation with you. We must meet again--at Brutli, I hope. There is much that I wish to ask you.” Again the gleam of that dazzling smile, for which, as Mr Hicks confided afterwards to Mansfield, he would have walked round the world, and the visitors retired. The moment they were gone, the Queen turned to Anna Mirkovics. “Anna, you have disappointed me--grieved me bitterly. You will not forget!” “How can I forget, madame? He leaves you now--even now--in a moment, for his policy.” “I told him to go. He would have stayed. Why will you not consent to be happy, since I am? It breaks my heart to see how you hate him.” “Madame, I do rejoice to see you happy. There is nothing I desire more on earth. But I cannot forget. In my eyes, your happiness has no foundation. My blood boils when I remember how he treated you----” “Anna, Anna, think. I love him. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know what love is?” “Alas, madame, yes! I love you.” “Then you do understand. You have borne with me, my despair, my fretfulness, my ill temper, because you love me. Your love has never failed for one moment. And that is the measure of my love for him.” “Madame, I will not have you compare yourself with him. I love your changes of mood--even your coldness. How can they make any difference to me?” “And I love him in the same way. Come, Anna, you would not make me miserable? How can I be happy if you persist in frowning upon my happiness?” “Oh, you break my heart, madame! Well, then, I rejoice that you are happy, and if his Excellency continues to make you so, I shall rejoice all my life long that he has returned to you.” “That is my dear good Anna!” cried the Queen, drawing her friend’s pale plain face down to hers, and kissing her on the forehead. “Hilfenstein, I must kiss you too, for you have been on my side the whole time.” “Ah, madame, I have known you a good many years, and the Count also,” said the Baroness. “It would have been little use my opposing either of you. But I hear his Excellency returning. Your Majesty will receive him alone?” The Queen’s smile was a sufficient answer to the question, and both ladies disappeared hastily into the garden as Cyril entered from the hall, looking rather irritated than perturbed.