So the Countess had been fired with ardent dreams and later, when the

time seemed ripe, it was to her that Jusseret went, and with her that he

made his secret alliance.

The ambitions cherished by Marie Astaride to become Louis' queen were

secondary to a sincere devotion for Louis himself.

When at the last he had weakened and threatened to crumple, it was she

who goaded him back to resolution. When the Duke had gone half-heartedly

to his lodge to await the decision of the European Powers, it was she

who went to Puntal to direct the conspirators and watch, from the

windows of her hotel suite, the fortress on the jetty.

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Her one deplorable error had been in mistaking Benton for Martin. This

had been natural enough. Though she had never met the "English Jackal,"

she had once or twice seen him at a distance, and she had been misled by

a strong resemblance and an excessive eagerness.

The afternoon she had spent on the balcony of her suite, her eyes fixed

on the Fortress do Freres.

At last, with a wildly beating heart she had seen the King, Von Ritz and

the escort ride up to the entrance and disappear. She had

waited--waited--waited, her nerves set for the climax, until the

continued silence seemed an unendurable shock.

Then the King and escort emerged. She, sitting pale and rigid, saw them

mount and turn back unharmed toward the city. Her ears, eagerly set for

the detonation which should shake the town and reverberate along the

mountain sides, ached with the emptiness of silence.

Across the street a soldier, off duty and in civilian clothes, sat on

the sea-wall and whittled. Incidentally he noticed that Madame the

Countess was interested beyond the usual in some matter. He was there to

notice Madame the Countess. His instructions from Von Ritz had been to

keep a record of her goings and comings, and who came to see her or went

away.

Therefore, when the King and his small retinue had trotted past the

window and when Madame the Countess rose to go in, and when just as she

crossed the low sill of the window she suddenly caught up both hands to

her throat and fell heavily to the floor, the soldier, whittling a small

crucifix, made a record of that also. When a moment later a gentleman

whom he had not seen in Puntal for months, but whom he knew as the Count

Borttorff, because that gentleman had formerly been Major of his

battalion, hurriedly left a closed carriage and entered the place, the

incident was noted. When still later both Borttorff and the Countess

emerged and reëntered the conveyance, driving rapidly away, he likewise

noted these things. Going from the pier whither he had followed the

closed carriage, he reported his observations with soldierly dispatch to

Colonel Von Ritz.




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