The result of Queen Ernestine’s journey to Kaufenhafen was in one respect satisfactory, although it threw no light upon the mystery of her husband’s fate. The Emperor of Scythia received her kindly, and pledged his imperial word that neither he nor his ministers had had any hand in Count Mortimer’s disappearance, nor had they the slightest idea where he was at present. No reference was made to the Zionist plot, and the Emperor did not express any disapprobation of Cyril’s late political activity, which, said Prince Soudaroff when he heard of the interview, was a clear waste of a heaven-sent opportunity. Even if the Emperor did know nothing about Cyril, he might surely have dissembled his ignorance, and obtained some useful pledges from the Queen by means of vague promises and hinted hopes. But the whole subject of the interview amused Prince Soudaroff extremely, and he confided his _bon mot_ respecting the “Prince of the Captivity” so freely to the two or three kindred souls he contrived to gather round him even at Geneva, that it was repeated all over Europe before the end of the week. It was generally added, and the addition may also have been due to the kindred souls, that the Emperor had been wise in asserting his Chancellor’s non-participation in the _affaire Mortimer_ before, and not after, questioning the Chancellor himself on the subject. Heart-sick from her failure, the Queen was driven almost mad by the accounts which reached her from Illyria of the discovery of Paschics’s body and the abortive search at Bagnanera. Fresh confusion had been imported into the matter by a surgeon of high reputation for whom Usk had telegraphed to the capital of the province, for he certified that the bruises on the body had been caused before death, and could not, therefore, be the result of a buffeting in the subterranean river. Anxious to examine into the mystery herself, and also pay the last tribute of gratitude to her husband’s faithful servant by attending his funeral, Queen Ernestine hurried away from Kaufenhafen, only to fall ill on her journey to Illyria. A nervous fever, brought on by grief and overstrain, kept her a prisoner at Vindobona, tended by her aunt Princess Amalie, who was almost as much at home in the sick-room as at a wedding, and watched over by Lord Caerleon, who had not the heart to leave her and go on to Novigrad.