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 Office were to be at liberty to disown me, and that the whole and sole responsibility of my present action lay with me, let the consequences be what they might. But I calculated that so far I had kept aloof from committing the Government in any way, and could thus claim the protection of the Foreign Office should any personal violence be contemplated by old Kolfort.

I thought out carefully what I had to say, and when we arrived at the house set to work with a will. I gave a clear description of the Princess's counterplot, and then added my reason for believing that, although it was likely to fail now, it could yet be used for the advantage of Bulgaria and the Balkan States generally. The Prince had decided to abdicate, and if measures could be taken from Downing Street to have a successor to him ready, whether that successor should be Princess Christina or another, and the abdication so timed as to fit in with such a plan, it would be perfectly feasible to checkmate the Russian move. My own opinion, I declared, was in favour of putting the Princess on the throne, thus apparently acting in co-operation and concert with Russia, while at the same time taking secret measures to prevent any marriage on her part with a Russian ally.

For myself, I asked merely that, in the event of my being imprisoned by General Kolfort, the British representative in Bulgaria might be instructed by telegraph to press either for my being liberated or brought to trial. No more to be done than would be done in the case of an ordinary British subject.

When I had completed the despatch, I drafted a telegram announcing that it was on its way, and I instructed my companions how they were to act. Spernow was to take the work in hand, and to push on