Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the
minds of all.
"Who are _you_, John Armitage?"
And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had
used throughout:
"I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and
of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke's son and I were
school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father's place
near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New
World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my
story short--I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them.
It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies."
"Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father--you
never went to him?"
"I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my
father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had
not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria--Austria, always
Austria!"
"Yes; that was quite like him," said the Ambassador. "He served his
country with a passionate devotion.
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