They idled through the ruins, where the sunshine slanted through the gaunt broken windows, and the cawing rooks flapped lazily in and out. One or two other visitors were there besides themselves, and among them a lonely pale-faced man in grey, wearing gold pince-nez who, with hands behind his back, was studying the architecture and the various outbuildings. The Prince and his companion brushed close by him in the old refectory, when he glanced up suddenly at a window. His face was familiar enough to his Highness, who, however, passed him by as a stranger. It was Max Mason, only yesterday returned from Copenhagen. That afternoon the widow grew confidential with her princely cavalier in motor clothes, while he, on his part, encouraged her. "Ah!" he sighed presently as they were walking slowly together in a distant part of the great ruined fabric. "You have no idea how very lonely a man can really be, even though he may be born a prince. More often than not I'm compelled to live _incognito_, for I have ever upon me the fierce glare of publicity. Every movement, every acquaintance I make, even my most private affairs are pried into and chronicled by those confounded press fellows. And for that reason I'm often compelled to hold aloof from people with whom I could otherwise be on terms of intimate friendship. Half my time and ingenuity is spent upon the adoption of subterfuges to prevent people from discovering who I really am. And then those infernal illustrated papers, both here and on the Continent, are eternally republishing my photograph." "It really must be most annoying, Prince," remarked the widow sympathetically. "I often adopt the name of Burchell-Laing," he said, "and sometimes-- well," and he paused, looking her straight in the face. "I wonder, Mrs Edmondson, whether I might confide in you--I mean whether you would keep my secret?" "I hope I may be permitted to call myself your Highness's friend," she said in a calm, impressive tone. "Whatever you may tell me will not, I assure you, pass my lips." "I am delighted to have such a friend as yourself," he declared enthusiastically. "Somehow, though our acquaintanceship has been of such brief duration, yet I feel that your friendship is sincere, Mrs Edmondson." By this speech the widow was intensely flattered. Her companion saw it in her countenance. He did not allow her time to make any remark, but added: "My secret is-- well a rather curious one, perhaps--but the fact is that I have a dual personality. While being Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, I am also known as Dick Drummond, holder of two records on the Brooklands motor-track. In the motor-world I'm believed to be a young man of means, who devotes his time to motor-racing--a motor-maniac in fact." The widow stared at him in blank astonishment. "Are you really the Mr Drummond of whose wonderful feat I read of only the other day in the papers?"