“Slip round by the verandah while I distract Dietrich’s attention here,” she whispered hurriedly, and pushing past the servant, almost succeeded in gaining the door. While he sprang forward to stop her, the Queen slipped away and ran round to the window. It was open. Cyril was standing with his back to her, looking narrowly into something which he was holding up close to his eye. “Cyril!” she shrieked, bursting into the room. He started violently, but as he turned to her he thrust what he was holding under a piece of paper lying on the table. “Ernestine! how you startled me! You here--at this hour? What is the matter?” “Give it to me! give it to me!” she cried, rushing to the table. As she had expected, a pistol lay under the paper. Cyril’s hand came upon hers with a firm grasp as she snatched it up. “No, no, you shall not! Before my eyes, Cyril!” she screamed, trying to wrest the weapon from him. How it happened she could not tell, but as she struggled with him there was a sudden explosion, and a bullet whizzed close to her head, singeing her hair in its passage. Dazed and deafened, she loosed her hold of the pistol. “There!” she cried, laughing hysterically. “Better me than yourself!” Cyril, with an ashy face, picked up the pistol, which had fallen to the ground. The door opened impetuously, and Philippa’s horrified face looked in. Seeing that neither was hurt, she closed the door again, and meeting General Banics at the top of the stairs, assured him, in a voice which she vainly tried to render steady, that there was nothing wrong, A pistol had gone off by accident, that was all. “Are you hurt, Ernestine? How came you here?” “I wish I was hurt! I wish I had been killed!” she cried frantically, “for then you might have been sorry. Cyril, Cyril, I thought you loved me, and you don’t.” “You are talking wildly, my dearest.” “You don’t, and there is the proof of it.” She pointed to the discharged pistol. “It is cruel of you. What have I done that you should kill yourself to be rid of me?” “Be reasonable, Ernestine. This is an old pistol that I came across in turning out my things. Am I to blame if it should happen to be loaded? Accidents with fire-arms are not, absolutely unheard-of events.” “Oh, that was what the world was to believe, was it?” She swept him a superb curtsey. “Many thanks! But it is unnecessary to try to deceive me. I have spoken to Ramon, I know all. Cyril, my beloved,” her voice took a tone of the most poignant reproach, “have I deserved this? Am I such a fair-weather friend that you can’t trust me to cling to you in trouble as well as in prosperity?” “My dear Ernestine, it is because I know you would cling to me that I decline to drag you down with my wretched self. I thought I should have a kingdom to offer you; I find I shan’t have even an independence. Therefore----” he pointed to the pistol.