The arrival of Joan, of one who had actually been in her son's company until the danger was passed, though helping to dispel her terror, aroused a consuming desire to learn exactly what had happened. Joan, of course, could only describe the siege and their state of suspense until the soldiers cleared the street of the would-be assassins. As to the motive of the outrage or the manner in which it reached its sudden crisis, she had no more knowledge than the Princess, and a quite natural question occurred to the older woman when Joan told how Felix Poluski had startled the King and herself by his warning cry.
"My son had gone to visit you, then?" she said, not without a shadow of resentment at the fact that he had discovered this girl's whereabouts readily enough, though seemingly there was none to tell him that his father and mother were in the city and longing to see him.
Joan flushed at the words; but her answer carried conviction. "I do not yet understand just how or when Felix discovered that the King's life was threatened," she said; "but there can be no doubt it was a ruse on his part to distract the attention of the mob when he told his Majesty that I was in the hotel.—I chanced to be looking out—and I was very angry with Felix when I saw that he had stopped the King and was evidently informing him of my presence."
"Then my son did not know you were in Delgratz?"
"He had no notion I was any nearer than Paris."
"What an amazing chapter of accidents that you should be in Delgratz to-day, and, under Providence, become the means of saving Alec's life; for it is quite clear to me now that had he gone a few yards farther he would have been shot down without mercy!"
Joan colored even more deeply. Her pride demanded that she should no longer sail under a false flag, yet it was a seeming breach of maidenly reserve that she should announce her own betrothal. It would have come easier if she could claim more consideration from this kind faced, pleasant voiced woman than was warranted by the casual acquaintance of a railway journey. But Alec had sent her to his mother, and Joan's nature would not permit her to carry on the deception, though it might be capable of the most plausible explanation afterward.
"I feel I ought to tell you," she said, and the blood suddenly ebbed away from her face to her throbbing heart. "Alec and I were friends in Paris. We were fond of each other; but gave not much heed to it, since I was poor and he told me he had his way to make in the world. He wrote to me a few days ago, asking me to marry him. I did not know what to say, when chance threw in my way a commission to copy a picture in this very city. Put in such words, it all sounds very mad and unconvincing; but it is true, and it is equally true that I should never have acknowledged to-day that I returned his love if—if I did not think—for a few awful minutes—that we should both be killed. And—and—I wanted to die in his arms!"
Joan began to cry, and Princess Delgrado cried too, and it was in tears that King Alexis III. found them when he had returned Prince Michael's stately greeting and was told that the young American lady who had come from the shattered hotel was in his mother's room.