Lord Caerleon made no further attempt to alter the course of events, and Mansfield, grimly resolute, continued to torment himself with the sight of Philippa and her royal suitor. King Michael was following Prince Mirkovics’ advice, and endeavouring to enlist Philippa’s sense of duty upon his side. Since his _coup d’état_ of the summer, he had developed an abnormal interest in affairs of State, and he recounted his plans, hopes, fears, failures, successes, and aspirations to Philippa at suitable length. The recital bored her extremely, but she would not have been her mother’s daughter if she could have brought herself to throw cold water on any man’s good intentions, and she honestly did her best to sympathise with the King. Her task was not made easier by Usk, who continued to regard his would-be brother-in-law with unmitigated aversion. King Michael sought his acquaintance in the most flattering way, and extended the same honour to Mansfield and Mr Judson, never perceiving that his gracious determination to put people at their ease had the invariable effect of making them uncomfortable. The three Cambridge men were quite ready to overlook his position, which was, after all, not his own fault; but he could not forget it, and the consequence was that the friendship languished, and that among themselves they accused him of “putting on side,” and stigmatised him as “wretchedly bad form.” It is true that Usk once expressed in private a wish that the King was his brother; but only, as he explained immediately, that he might feel justified in punching his head. While Philippa’s affairs were in this unsettled state, the time of her uncle’s marriage was rapidly approaching. The wedding had been fixed for New Year’s day, and it had been the secret design of the Chevalier and his party that after the ceremony a deputation from the Jewish provisional government should wait upon the newly married pair and offer them the crown, if such it might be called, of Palestine. But this was now recognised to be out of the question. When the sensation caused by the appearance of the Yellow Pamphlet, and the subsequent repudiation of Cyril by half the Jewish world, had a little subsided, the journalists of the Continent held their breath for a time, realising what they had done. The man whom they had helped to vilify had never been known to forgive an insult, and the issue of that _brutum fulmen_, the message framed by Mr Hicks and Paschics in order to gain time, threw them into a state approaching panic. What blow had Count Mortimer in preparation?