"I was surprised that she should turn up here, in Ostend," I said.
"I had written to her. I expected her."
"She does not know your real rank or station?"
"No. To her I am merely Herr Emil Richter, whom she first met away in the country. She was a tourist, and I was Captain Emil Richter, of the Prussian Guards. We met while you were away on holiday at Vienna."
I was anxious to learn something about Miss King's brother, but "Willie" was generally discreet, and at that moment unusually so. One fact was plain, however, that some secret report presented to the Emperor had been shown to her. Why? I wondered if His Highness had been successful in coercing her into acting as he desired.
Certainly the girl's attitude as she had left the hotel went to show that, in the contest, she had won by her woman's keen wit and foresight. I recollected, too, that she was British.
A fortnight afterwards we were back again at Potsdam.
About three months passed. The Crown-Prince had accompanied the Emperor to shoot on the Glatzer Gebirge, that wild mountainous district beyond Breslau. For a week we had been staying at a great, high-up, prison-like schloss, the ancestral home of Prince Ludwig Lichtenau, in the Wölfelsgrund.
The Emperor and his suite had left, and our host had been suddenly called to Berlin by telegram, his daughter having been taken ill. Therefore, the Crown-Prince and we of the suite had remained for some further sport.
On the day after the Emperor's departure I spent the afternoon in a small panelled room which overlooked a deep mountain gorge, and which had been given up to me for work. I was busy with correspondence when the courier from Potsdam entered and gave me the battered leather pouch containing the Crown-Prince's letters. Having unlocked it with my key, I found among the correspondence a small square packet addressed to His Imperial Highness, and marked "Private."