Foiled in the hope of regaining her empire over King Michael, the Princess of Dardania turned with desperate vigour to the object which lay even nearer to her heart. It was not enough to count the days until she might hope to hear from Colonel Czartoriski of the success of his mission in acquainting Queen Ernestine with the villainy of the man who professed to love her--the Princess counted the very hours. At last the anxiously expected missive lay before her, but in the fulness of her triumph she allowed herself to gloat over her vengeance for a while before opening the envelope. When at length she drew out the letter and read it, the change that passed over her face was terrible to see. Colonel Czartoriski had not been successful. The Queen had positively refused to receive him when he presented himself at the Deaconesses’ Institution at Brutli. He tried bribery and cajolery in vain; and Princess Anna Mirkovics, the Queen’s maid of honour, who had acted as her Majesty’s mouthpiece throughout the negotiations, assured him that it was hopeless to attempt to obtain an interview. She offered to take charge of the letter of which he was the bearer; but in view of his mistress’s stringent order that he was to place it himself in the Queen’s hands, Colonel Czartoriski thought it well to ask for further instructions. The Princess of Dardania glanced through his formal phrases with a heart-sickening sense of bitter failure. “He has been before me!” she said to herself, alluding not to Colonel Czartoriski, but to Cyril. “He has warned Ernestine that I shall try to prejudice her against him, and she is prepared to believe everything he says and nothing that I say. This explains his astonishing tardiness in first visiting Egypt and then Palestine, instead of going straight to Beyrout and the Lebanon. He has made things safe for himself already. Well, Czartoriski must wait at Damascus and watch for a chance of giving Ernestine my letter, and it may be possible to spoil their reunion in another way.” That very day Colonel Czartoriski received a fiery telegram in cipher, which he read without astonishment as the hasty utterance of an outraged mother, dashed off in a moment of desperation. He would have been amazed to learn that the Princess had spent hours of anxious thought over the brief message. “Do not return to tell me that the base wretch has achieved all he desired. Is there not one among the Christians whom he has betrayed to avenge the Holy Places on this renegade?”