CHAPTER XIII.
A SUDDEN FLIGHT.
Blanka sat in her room, with closed doors, preparing her costume for the masked ball.

Affairs in the world outside had moved rapidly during the past few days.

In the feverish excitement of that revolutionary period, mob violence was threatening to gain the upper hand.

Shouts of boisterous merriment reached the princess from the street.

From the adjoining wing of the palace, too, other sounds, almost equally boisterous, fell on her ear at intervals.