"Oh, I have made plans for you," said she. "You are to be held as hostage."
"What!"
"I thought of your predicament last night, and here is the solution. This very day I shall issue an order forbidding you the right to leave Edelweiss. You will not be in prison, but your every movement is to be watched. A strong guard will have you under surveillance, and any attempt to escape or to communicate with your friend will result in your confinement and his detection. In this way you may stay here until the time comes to fly. The Axphain people must be satisfied, you know. Your freedom will not be disturbed; you may come and go as you like, but you are ostensibly a prisoner. By detaining you forcibly we gain a point, for you are needed here. There is no other way in which you can explain a continued presence in Graustark. Is not my plan a good one?"
He gazed in admiration at her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes.
"It is beyond comparison," he said, rising and bowing low. "So shrewd is this plan that you make me a hostage forever; I shall not escape its memory if I live to be a thousand."
And so it was settled, in this pretty drama of deception, that Harry Anguish was to be held in Edelweiss as hostage. At parting she said, seriously: "A great deal depends on your discretion. Mr. Anguish. My guards will watch your every action, for they are not in the secret,--excepting Quinnox,--and any attempt on your part to communicate with Grenfall Lorry will be fatal."
"Trust me, your Highness. I have had much instruction in wisdom to-day."
"I hope we shall see you often," she said.
"Daily--as a hostage," he replied, glancing toward the Countess.
"That means until the other man is captured," said that young lady, saucily.
As he left the castle he gazed at the distant building in the sky and wondered how it had ever been approached in a carriage. She had not told him that Allode drove for miles over winding roads that led to the monastery up a gentler slope from the rear.
The next afternoon Edelweiss thrilled with a new excitement. Prince Bolaroz of Axphain, mad with grief and rage, came thundering into the city with his Court at his heels. His wrath had been increased until it resembled a tornado when he read the reward placard in the uplands. Not until then did he know that the murderer had escaped and that vengeance might be denied him.
After, viewing the body of Lorenz as it lay in the sarcophagus of the royal palace, where it had been borne at the command of the Princess Yetive, he demanded audience with his son's betrothed, and it was with fear that she prepared for the trying ordeal, an interview with the grief-crazed old man. The castle was in a furore; its halls soon thronged with diplomatists and there was an ugly sense of trouble in the air, suggestive of the explosion which follows the igniting of a powder magazine.