“My father was less angry than his letter had prepared me to expect,” Mr Steinherz went on. “He could not but disapprove most strongly of my choice, he said, and would promise nothing as to the future, but if I would consent to make a voyage round the world at once, giving my word not to hold any communication with the Countess Aline while I was away, he would see what could be done on my return. I murmured at the harshness of the stipulation, reminding him that my brother Florian had been permitted to marry Princess Erzsebet Mohacsy, who was not of royal blood; to which he replied, with the cynical brutality he sometimes affected, that she brought a princedom as the price of the alliance, whereas my poor Aline’s father could barely give her a dress-allowance. I yielded. My mother’s entreaties to me not to come to an open breach with my father were still in my ears, and I could not see anything better to do. I was appointed to one of the largest Pannonian men-of-war, and I did not dislike the cruise. When I had been away two years, the news of my brother Florian’s death recalled me hastily to Vindobona, and I found Aline--married. What pressure they had brought to bear on her, what lies they had told her about me, I do not know and did not ask; but she was married to a rough fellow called Baron Radniky--a noble, it is true, but the very type of a churlish, bigoted reactionary. I had a terrible scene with my father when I learned the truth, and I swore I would remain in Pannonia no longer. I would cast aside my rank, as I had intended to do if I married Aline, and go out into the world a free man. He laughed in my face when I said this, and as soon as I was outside the room I found myself under arrest. For weeks I was a State prisoner inside the palace,--I, who was accustomed to freedom and an active life,--and at the end of that time my relations thought they could deal with me. The Emperor patched up a reconciliation with my father, and I was allowed my personal liberty, but forbidden to leave Vindobona. All the people round me were spies--my cousins the Archdukes, the servants, the gay young men who were set on to divert my mind. I saw there was no hope of escape at present, and I allowed myself to seem resigned. Aline lived far away in the country. She had passed out of my life, and for that I was thankful. But the vicious idleness of my surroundings I could not endure, and at last I obtained leave to set up a laboratory in my father’s gardens, at a safe distance from the palace, in order to continue my scientific experiments. Here again the Emperor stood my friend, and even allowed me to send for my foster-brother, Martin Richter, and install him as my assistant. It was supposed that he did all the menial work of the laboratory; but my relations would indeed have been astonished if they had seen prince and peasant labouring together, for he knew as much of the theoretical part of the work as I