The Emperor, as may be supposed, was not melted, but rather hardened, by that appeal to his feelings; so that, when the Archduke presently announced his desire to resign his rank and titles, take the name of “John Orth,” and leave Austria, Francis Joseph replied that he might take any name he chose, and go where he liked, but that, if he ever attempted to return, he would find that the Austrian police had orders to arrest him as soon as he crossed the frontier. Those were the circumstances in which he departed; and Milly Stübel departed with him. He could not marry her in Austria, but he had promised to marry her in London. CHAPTER XXIV John Orth—Had he been plotting with Rudolph?—Indirect confirmation of story told by Countess Marie Larisch—Did John Orth really marry Milly Stübel—Failure to find the proofs of the marriage—John Orth’s letters written on the eve of his departure for America—Disappearance of his ship off Cape Horn—Is John Orth really dead—Examination of the reasons for believing that he is still alive. We will now definitely call John of Tuscany John Orth; but a cloud of uncertainty overhangs both his assumption of that name and his subsequent adventures. Ostensibly he assumed the name, and shook the dust of Austria off his feet, to please himself; but there are not wanting those who declare that, if he had not resigned his rank, he would have been deprived of it, and that he only banished himself because the Emperor had threatened to banish him. The narrative of Princess Louisa does not help us much. Princess Louisa only knows what her uncle told her, and he evidently told her very little. It is reasonable to trust her for the passionate scene in Francis Joseph’s cabinet; but that is all. She was only a girl of twenty when she heard of it, and there was no reason why the hidden causes of the scene should be confided to her. Nor does one get much light from Countess Marie Larisch’s story of the plot to seize the throne of Hungary, if one accepts her version of that story; for, if all the evidence relating to that plot was contained in the mysterious steel casket, then Francis Joseph would have known nothing of it, and John Orth would have had nothing to fear when once the casket was in his hands. But was all the evidence of that plot contained in that steel casket? Had not a portion of it found its way, by some means or other, into the hands of the Austrian secret police? That is our problem; and it will be useful to turn back to the half-forgotten gossip of the time, and see if we can find in it any indications that Countess Marie Larisch’s “revelation” has, at least, “something in it.”