"Before your train, your Highness; and, besides, I wished to avoid any scene. But I am pained to say you must consider yourselves under arrest, and must be prepared to return to Munich by the first available train."
CHAPTER XXVII
AN OLD ENEMY
I saw at once it would be hopeless to attempt any resistance to this new development. My first feeling was one of bitter chagrin and exasperation, mingled with genuine alarm for the consequences to Minna. Who had dealt the blow, and for what object? I knew that I had rendered myself liable to arrest and prosecution for my impersonation of the Prince von Gramberg, although, despite what Baron Heckscher had said, I could not understand who would attempt to set the law in motion.
But with Minna it was very different. It was certain that the conspiracy with which she had nominally been concerned might carry very ugly consequences; but, at the worst, any such act would constitute only a political offence against the Bavarian laws, and I did not think that outside Bavaria she could be touched. But we had long passed that frontier safely. Whose hand, then, was this?
I recalled, with something of a shudder, the news which Major Gessler had told me, to the effect that von Augener had gone to Munich, and I saw that, if our arrest was made at his instigation, the results might be even more serious than I had anticipated.
"I have no intention to offer resistance to this step," I said after a pause of thought; "but, of course, you must satisfy me of your authority for it."
"I am the chief of the police here," replied the official, "and hold full instructions—very full instructions indeed, and very urgent ones. The case is a very exceptional one."
"But surely you can tell me the nature of the charge for which you say I am to consider myself under arrest?"