“I must apologise for intruding upon you,” said the Princess, as he stood speechless, “but I saw you from my windows--with a telescope,”--she pointed to a house just discernible among the trees on one of the upper slopes,--“and I ventured to follow you. Perhaps you would not mind coming a little lower down the hill? There is a spot where we can be quite sheltered from observation, and I should not like the dear young friend for whose sake I am here to know what I had done.” Usk obeyed in silence. Speech seemed to have forsaken him, and he could only follow the Princess, and sit down on the turf opposite her, as her gesture invited him to do. “We need not beat about the bush,” she said. “You, like me, have a particular interest just now in King Michael of Thracia,--I because his fickleness is breaking the heart of the dear girl who is my one comfort, you because he has chosen for the time being to set his affections upon your _fiancée_.” Usk bowed, and opened his lips to speak, but the Princess held up her hand. “Wait, if you please. I sympathise with you sincerely, but chiefly for reasons with which you are not at present acquainted. Bad as his conduct is, Michael is not wholly to blame. He is inspired by others, who have taken advantage of his weakness of character to serve their own ends. Don’t interrupt me,” as Usk, who began to see whither this was tending, raised his head again, “but listen. The whole affair is the work of your uncle, Count Mortimer. I don’t say that he is working for his own aggrandisement in any vulgar sense, but with his incurable instinct of intrigue, he has seen how to reap advantage from Michael’s inconstancy.” “Before you go any further, madame,” said Usk firmly, “I may as well tell you that nothing you can say will make me doubt my uncle’s good faith.”