"Yes, but at what a cost!" the queen said sternly. "Peretori, do you ever consider anything else but your own selfish amusements? Look at the harm you have done. Once the printed lie crosses the border into Asturia, what is to become of us all! Did you think of that? Can't you understand that all Europe will imagine that the king has resigned his throne? Desperate as things are, you have made then ten times worse."
Peretori looked blankly at the speaker. He was like a boy who had been detected in some offence and for the first time realized the seriousness of it.
"I give you my word that I never thought of that for a moment," he said. "It is one of my sins that I never think of anything where a jest is concerned. That smug little editor swallowed everything that I said in the most amusing fashion. I had won my money and I was free. My dear cousin, if there is anything that I can do——"
The queen shook her head mournfully. She was quite at a loss for the moment. Unless, perhaps, the tables could be turned in another way.
"You have been the dupe of two of our most unscrupulous enemies," the queen went on. "They are agents of Russia, and at the present moment their great task is to try and bring about the abdication of the King of Asturia. Once this is done, the path is fairly clear. To bring this about these people can use as much money as they please. They have been baffled once or twice lately, but when they found you they saw a good chance of doing our house a deadly harm. A thousand pounds, or fifty times that amount mattered little. How did they find you?"
"I have been in England six months," Peretori said. "I dropped my rank. There was an English girl I was very fond of. I was prepared to sacrifice everything so long as she became my wife. It doesn't matter how those people found me. The mischief is done."
"The mischief is almost beyond repair," Lechmere said. "But why did you come here? Why did you sit before the open windows in the next suite of rooms?"
"That was part of the plan, my dear sir," Peretori exclaimed. "Probably there was somebody watching who had to be convinced that I was the King of Asturia. I flatter myself that my make-up was so perfect that nobody could possibly——"
"Still harping on that string," the queen said reproachfully. "Why don't you try and realize that the great harm that you have done has to be repaired at any cost? With all your faults, you were never a traitor to your country. Are you going to take the blood-money, knowing what it means? I cannot believe that you have stooped so low as that."
The face of Peretori fell; a shamed look came into his eyes.