"It is enough, madame," he cried. "I swear to you, as Heaven
hears me, that he shall be punished."

"Punished?" she echoed, checking in her stride, and looked at him
with a smile of sad incredulity. "It is not his punishment I
seek, my friend, but my own salvation."

"The one can be accomplished with the other," he answered hotly,
and struck the cut-steel hilt of his sword. "You shall be rid of
this lout as soon as ever I can come to him. I go after him to
Berlin to-night."

The colour all faded from her cheeks, her sensitive lips fell
apart, as she looked at him aghast.

"Why, what would you do? What do you mean?" she asked him.

"I will send him the length of my sword, and so make a widow of
you, madame."

She shook her head. "Princes do not fight," she said, on a note
of contempt.

"I shall so shame him that he will have no alternative--unless,
indeed, he is shameless. I will choose my occasion shrewdly, put
an affront on him one evening in his cups, when drink shall have
made him valiant enough to commit himself to a meeting. If even
that will not answer, and he still shields himself behind his
rank--why, there are other ways to serve him." He was thinking,