"Tell your tale," he said, addressing me curtly.
"Every word I say can be tested by independent inquiry," I answered. "These people are accused not by my words, but by their own acts."
I described then my journey to Landsberg and what had happened there, though I said nothing of the love scenes.
"And by that time, I suppose, you thought you had done enough to warrant you in running off with the countess herself?" said old von Augener.
I made no reply, but kept my face as though he had not spoken.
"How came you to attempt to fly the country?" asked the Emperor.
"I was not attempting to fly the country, sire," I replied readily. "I had told the countess of the interview with Baron Heckscher, and my advice to her was that she should put the frontier between her and the enemies who had betrayed and persecuted her with such virulence. I was taking her to Charmes, to the care of the man in whose place I stood, Herr von Fromberg, now known as M. Henri Frombe; and I had told her that I should immediately return either here or to Berlin to lay her case before your Majesty, that her interests might be secured and herself protected from further violence."
"But you kept up your personation of the Prince," cried von Augener, seeing another point to be scored against me.
"I deemed that a necessary step until all could be explained. The countess was left at Landsberg without a friend to whom she could turn. The Baroness Gratz, who should have protected her, had first betrayed her to Baron Heckscher, and then connived at von Nauheim stealing away with her from Landsberg. What then was I to do? I had explained to her that I was not the Prince, and it seemed that my only possible course was to take her to where she would at least be in the care of a relative, and, as I judged, safe. What else should I have done?"
"Is that all you have to say of your part in the plot?"