"It shall be in your highness's hands this evening."
The next morning, with Colonel Quinnox and a small escort, Beverly Calhoun set off in one of the royal coaches for Ganlook, accompanied by faithful Aunt Fanny. She carried the order from Baron Dangloss and a letter from Yetive to the Countess Rallowitz, insuring hospitality over night in the northern town. Lorry and the royal household entered merrily into her project, and she went away with the godspeeds of all. The Iron Count himself rode beside her coach to the city gates, an unheard-of condescension.
"Now, you'll be sure to find a nice place for him in the castle guard, won't you, Count Marlanx?" she said at the parting, her hopes as fresh as the daisy in the dew, her confidence supreme. The count promised faithfully, even eagerly. Colonel Quinnox, trained as he was in the diplomacy of silence, could scarcely conceal his astonishment at the conquest of the hard old warrior.
Although the afternoon was well spent before Beverly reached Ganlook, she was resolved to visit the obdurate patient at once, relying upon her resourcefulness to secure his promise to start with her for Edelweiss on the following morning. The coach delivered her at the hospital door in grand style. When the visitor was ushered into the snug little room of the governor's office, her heart was throbbing and her composure was undergoing a most unusual strain. It annoyed her to discover that the approaching contact with an humble goat-hunter was giving her such unmistakable symptoms of perturbation.
From an upstairs window in the hospital the convalescent but unhappy patient witnessed her approach and arrival. His sore, lonely heart gave a bound of joy, for the days had seemed long since her departure.
He had had time to think during these days, too. Turning over in his mind all of the details in connection with their meeting and their subsequent intercourse, it began to dawn upon him that she might not be what she assumed to be. Doubts assailed him, suspicions grew into amazing forms of certainty. There were times when he laughed sardonically at himself for being taken in by this strange but charming young woman, but through it all his heart and mind were being drawn more and more fervently toward her. More than once he called himself a fool and more than once he dreamed foolish dreams of her—princess or not. Of one thing he was sure: he had come to love the adventure for the sake of what it promised and there was no bitterness beneath his suspicions.
Arrayed in clean linen and presentable clothes, pale from indoor confinement and fever, but once more the straight and strong cavalier of the hills, he hastened into her presence when the summons came for him to descend. He dropped to his knee and kissed her hand, determined to play the game, notwithstanding his doubts. As he arose she glanced for a flitting second into his dark eyes, and her own long lashes drooped.
"Your highness!" he said gratefully.
"How well and strong you look," she said hurriedly. "Some of the tan is gone, but you look as though you had never been ill. Are you quite recovered?"
"They say I am as good as new," he smilingly answered. "A trifle weak and uncertain in my lower extremities, but a few days of exercise in the mountains will overcome all that. Is all well with you and Graustark? They will give me no news here, by whose order I do not know."