From Von Metzsch came several cipher messages to the Emperor after we had returned to Potsdam, but Zorn von Bulach, my colleague, deciphered all of them, and, as he was not my friend, I did not inquire as to their purport. I knew, however, that matters in Dresden were fast approaching a crisis, and that the unfortunate Hapsburg Princess could no longer sustain the cruel and unjust pressure being put upon her for her undoing. That a hundred of Germany's spies and _agents-provocateurs_ were busy I realized from the many messages by telephone and telegraph passing between Berlin and Dresden, and I felt certain that the ruin of poor Princess Luisa was nigh. A significant message came to Potsdam late one December night--a message which, when I deciphered it and handed it to the Emperor, caused him to smile in triumph. I bit my lip. The Princess had left Dresden! Three days later, on December 9th, a further cipher telegram came from Von Metzsch, the Emperor's sycophant in Dresden, which read: "Luisa has learnt of the Sonnenstein project, and has left Salsburg for Zurich, her brother accompanying.--VON METZSCH." Sonnenstein! That was a private lunatic asylum! I held my breath at the awful fate which the Emperor had decided should be hers. In a few moments the Kaiser had summoned, by his private telephone, Koehler, then chief of the Berlin secret police, and given orders that the Princess was to be watched in Switzerland. Half an hour later three police agents were on their way to Zurich to follow and persecute the poor, distracted woman, even beyond the confines of the Empire. She was, no doubt, in deadly fear of being sent to a living tomb, so that her mouth should be closed for ever. The Emperor, not content with casting her out of Germany, intended to wreak a terrible and fiendish revenge upon her by closing her lips and confining her in an asylum. She knew that, and seeing herself surrounded by enemies and spies on every hand--for even her brother Leopold, with whom she had travelled to Switzerland, now refused to assist her--she adopted the only method of further escape that at the moment presented itself. Alone and without anyone to advise her, she, as you know, took a desperate resolve, one, alas! fraught with disastrous consequences. The iron had indeed entered the poor Princess's soul. NOTE BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX _The dénouement of this base intrigue of the Emperor's will be best related in Her Imperial Highness's own words. In one of her letters, which I have on my table as I write, she says:_