'Bid my carriage follow me to the palace.

In half an hour it should be there in waiting.' The night was beginning to fall and the shops to shine with lamps along the tree-beshadowed thorough-fares of Otto's capital, when the Countess started on her high emprise.

She was jocund at heart; pleasure and interest had winged her beauty, and she knew it.

She paused before the glowing jeweller's; she remarked and praised a costume in the milliner's window; and when she reached the lime-tree walk, with its high, umbrageous arches and stir of passers-by in the dim alleys, she took her place upon a bench and began to dally with the pleasures of the hour.

It was cold, but she did not feel it, being warm within; her thoughts, in that dark corner, shone like the gold and rubies at the jewellers; her ears, which heard the brushing of so many footfalls, transposed it into music.
What was she to do?
She held the paper by which all depended.