On the following morning, Ranata, accompanied only by Maria Leopoldina, three officers of the Emperor’s household, and her servants, left Vienna, not in the Emperor’s private car but in ordinary railway carriages reserved for her use. She wore the plainest of her travelling-frocks, nor was there anything in the appearance of her modest suite to attract attention; and in the heavy fog of daybreak even the mounted escort that guarded her to the station passed unnoticed.
When Vienna was an hour behind them Maria Leopoldina informed the prisoner that they were bound for the Adriatic, for the castle of Miramar, built by Maximilian several years before his departure for Mexico. The information gave Ranata pleasure, for she had never seen the beautiful home from which her uncle had sailed to his romantic and ignominious fate. Her father and mother had avoided it since long before her birth, but she knew that the castle was as comfortable as it was magnificent, and that there were grounds in whose labyrinths she could walk for hours without the monotony of repetition. Suddenly she had an inspiration.
“Did my father order Mr. Abbott’s yacht to leave Trieste?” she asked.
“Ah!—well, it can do no harm—he did.”
“Where is it?”
“That I do not know. I think his Majesty has not inquired—so long as it is not in Austrian waters.”
“Does my father expect to keep my departure, my residence at so conspicuous a spot as Miramar, a secret?”
“That will not matter. There will be an official announcement made that you are gone to the sea to recuperate from an attack of the influenza, and a man-of-war has been ordered to Trieste; it will anchor off the castle. The guard in the castle and grounds has been quadrupled from the garrison at Trieste. Moreover—I will tell you all, as it can do no harm—Mr. Abbott has given his parole d’honneur that he will make no attempt to carry you off; he wished you to be removed to the country, it seems. He has had the audacity to ask your hand of his Majesty. I suppose he is of unsound mind, poor young man.”
And Maria Leopoldina had the profound satisfaction of writing to her sovereign and cousin that evening that his daughter had received this proof of American absurdity and presumption with a peal of laughter which had warmed her own heart, heavy with responsibility, and with sympathy for his most gracious majesty.