“Count von Hohenlinden,” he cried. “You spoke of him, my princess. He is my financier. I need his advice. Have you news of him, Hilda?” The princess turned and approached the king.
“The countess came to me this morning in tears,” she said quietly. “Count von Hohenlinden has gone.”
“Gone?” cried King Rudolph in amazement. “Gone where?”
“No one knows. I fear, your majesty—I fear from what the countess said—that—that—he is a defaulter.”
“Mein Gott! Mein Gott!” exclaimed the king, sinking into a chair. “It cannot be! And yet—and yet—he had full control of my treasury. He told me yesterday—but what matters it what he said then? Call von Schwalbach to me. I tell you, Herr Bennett, if my prime minister has allowed the count to loot my treasury I will have his life. Quick! call a page and send him for von Schwalbach.”
“Alas, your majesty,” said the princess soothingly, “von Schwalbach has also disappeared. It is said that he and the count left the kingdom last night, riding their wheels through a secret pass in the hills.”
The countenance of royalty had turned white with dismay. The king seemed to be stricken helpless at one blow.
“My best friends gone,” he muttered. “Gone—thieves that run off in the night! And I—I have trusted them with my purse, my honor, my very life. Tell me, Hilda,” he went on, almost hysterically, “what caused this downfall of men whose word was always as good as gold, men who have been found faithful to their trust for years?”
The broken king looked up pathetically at his golden-haired niece. She smiled sadly down at him, and then turned frowningly toward Bennett, who stood, with one hand resting upon the card-table, watching the melancholy scene before him.
“One thing alone caused the ruin of the men you trusted,” she said, and paused.