"This means business," said the latter, pale but composed. "The Guides and the King's Dragoons are not being paraded for nothing. Royalty is going to be arrested with the pomp and circumstance due to the occasion."
"They have discovered your presence here?"
"Obviously. I am caught like a rat in a trap."
Trafford scanned the bloodless but firm countenance, and admired intensely. Here was no hysterical school-girl playing at high treason for sheer love of excitement, but a young woman who was very much in earnest, very much distressed, and at the same time splendidly self-controlled. He stood a moment thinking furiously with knitted brows, hoping that his racing thoughts might devise some scheme for averting the impending tragedy. The room they were in was the last of a series, and possessed of but one door. To return that way was to come back inevitably to the entrance hall,—a proceeding which would merely expedite the intentions of their enemies. He looked hopelessly round the chamber, and he dashed across to the great stone fireplace. It would have formed an admirable place of concealment had not its smoke aperture been barred with a substantial iron grille.
"It's no use," sighed the Princess wearily. "I must face my fate. Perhaps the good burghers will effect a rescue."
"Not if the King's Dragoons do their duty," retorted Trafford grimly. "Mob-heroism is not much use against ball-cartridges."
"Then I must yield to the inevitable."
Trafford shook his head fiercely.
"That is just what you must not do!" he cried. For a moment he stood irresolute, running his hand through his stiff, up-standing hair.