"Some one must act, and speedily too, or the resultant mischief cannot be undone. I appeal to you because you are a woman, and we men are prone to bungle in these matters."
"But what do you want of me?" wailed the tortured Princess. "Michael protested against the marriage——"
"I am thinking of Alec's welfare now," said Stampoff gruffly. "You are his mother, and you and I can save him. In a word, that girl must go, to-night if possible, to-morrow without fail. The talk of marriage must be dropped, and revived only when a Serb is the prospective bride."
"You say she must go. What does that imply? It is not in my power to send her away, even if I would."
"It is, Princess," was the grim answer. "If she loves Alec, she will save him by leaving him. I am told women do these things occasionally. Perhaps she is one of the self sacrificing sort. At any rate, she must be given the chance, and by you. She must go away, and, in going, tell the King she will never marry him. It is hard. Both will suffer; but, in the long run Alec will come to see that by no other means can he retain his Kingdom."
CHAPTER XI
JOAN DECIDES
An odd element of fatality seemed to attach itself to the Byzantine Saint Peter in the cathedral of Delgratz. Joan nearly lost her life within a few hours of the time when first she saw that remarkable work of art, and it was ordained that one of the last clear memories of the checkered life in Kosnovia should be its round staring eyes, its stiffly modeled right hand, uplifted, it might be, in reproof or exhortation, the ornate pastoral staff, and the emblem of the crossed keys that labeled the artist's intent to portray the chief apostle. Poor Joan had already conceived a violent dislike of the reputed Giotto. It was no longing to complete her work that drove her, at the end, to the solemn cathedral, but the compelling need of confiding in Felix. For it had come to this: she must fly from Delgratz at once and forever.