What could she say? She was very lonely, and she wanted to tell him what had occurred since her return to Treysa and of the crisis of it all. So she nodded in the affirmative.
Then he gave the porter his tip, and the man departed. Presently, before the train moved off, the sleeping child opened her eyes, shyly at first, in the presence of a stranger; but a moment later, recognising him, she got up, and rushing gladly towards him, cried in her pretty, childish way,—
“Leitolf! Good Leitolf to come with us! We are so very tired!”
“Are you, little Highness?” exclaimed the man laughing, and taking her upon his knee. “But you will soon be at your destination.”
“Yes,” she pouted, “but I would not mind if mother did not cry so much.”
The Princess pressed her lips together. She was a little annoyed that her child should reveal the secret of her grief. If she did so to Leitolf she might do so to others.
After a little while, however, the motion of the train lulled the child off to sleep again, and the man laid her down as before. Then, turning to the sorrowing woman at his side, he asked,—
“You had my message—I mean you found it?”
She nodded, but made no reply. She recollected each of those finely-penned words, and knew that they came from the heart of as honest and upright a man as there was in the whole empire.
“And now tell me, Princess, the reason of this second journey to Vienna?” he asked, looking at her with his calm, serious face.