"Cousin!" and her astonishment deepened and found expression in her tone. "Am I not here for that very purpose--and dying to learn the news?
Come;" and she went into the room and led the way to the far end, as it chanced to the very window from the embrasure of which I had first seen her. "I hope your first news is that all this plot is at an end, and that the project of the marriage is dead with it?"
I had mastered my stupid embarra.s.sment by this time and had found my tongue again.
"You must listen carefully to all I have to tell you, and then to what I propose to do," I replied, and plunged at once into as plain a recital as I could give of all that part of the proceedings which I deemed it necessary to tell her. I dwelt upon the reasons why in my opinion it was impossible to draw back yet, and upon all I expected to gain by the counterplot I had devised.
"I will not see the Count von Nauheim again," she said, and her dislike of him was the first and strongest feeling she expressed. Nor did I grieve at this.
"He will not come here," I said. "I was going to force a quarrel on him to make that impossible when he saved me the trouble by putting one on me. I then warned him off the place."
"Good, very good!" she cried, her eyes flashing. "If I were to see him again, I could not restrain my hatred. I should tell him exactly how I feel toward him. It is loathsome even to be linked in name with such a man. But as that is settled, I will do whatever you wish. I knew you would be too much for them all, cousin Hans, if they did not kill you, as I sadly feared they would. I shall never be able to repay you," she added, looking to me and smiling. "If I were only a man, I could----"
"What?" I asked when she stopped.
"I could at least fight with you instead of being a clog and a drag."
"You are our inspiration," I said earnestly, and at that her cheeks flushed and she cast down her eyes.
"I wish all the trouble were over," she said presently.
"We must not be in too great a hurry. We have done very well so far. A little pluck and dash, and slice or two of luck, and we shall get through all right. But now tell me, can you think of any place in Munich, or near there, where you can go secretly and hide when the moment comes?"
"Why must I be put out of the way in this fashion? It seems like running away at the very moment of peril, and I am not afraid. Do you think I am a coward?"
"This is no question of bravery or cowardice. It is merely a matter of tactics. The very keystone of this inner plot of theirs is that you shall be missing when the cry is raised for you to ascend the throne. To secure that these people will stick at nothing--they would even take your life. Now, for the success of my counter-scheme, I must be able to have you at hand just when I want you. That is all-important. You will have to go to Munich in apparent compliance with their wishes for you to be ready for the final coup, and we shall show no sign of suspicion, but you will have trusty guards to protect you against attack. My scheme is to let them carry off some one in your place, and for that purpose I shall endeavor to get wind of their plan of abduction. What I wish to do is to shut out suspicion that we have fooled them until it is too late for them to change their plans. Is there any one among your maids whom you could trust to personate you, who is sufficiently like you in height and color and so on to be mistaken for you by a stranger, knowing you only by description or having only seen you once? She would of course be dressed to represent you, and she must be sufficiently devoted to you to take a risk and hold her tongue."
"Yes, my dressing-maid, Marie, might pa.s.s for me under such circ.u.mstances, and I would answer for her stanchness."
"Tell her nothing until the time is close at hand. Then let her know what has to be done. She will wear your dress and will be carried off; you will slip away; and I shall go in a fine rage to von Nauheim to frighten him from getting to see his captive, and thus discover the trick. Your present task, then, will be to get ready for that part of the scheme, and also to think of some safe place to which you can go."
"I will willingly do more, if it will help you," she said.
The completeness of her trust in me was apparent in every word she spoke.
"There will be plenty of exciting work to follow," I replied, with a smile, for I was pleased by her eagerness to help. "Your Majesty may depend upon it that a throne is not to be gained without a struggle."
"I should make a poor Queen," she answered.
"You will make a beautiful one; and if the Bavarians once get sight of you, they will not readily let you go."
She looked at me earnestly and, with half a sigh, said:
"You should not pay me empty compliments, cousin Hans. You should not say things you do not mean."
"Perhaps it would be truer that I must not say all I do mean," I returned, and for the moment my eyes spoke even more than my words; and I made haste to add, in as light a tone as I could: "Your Majesty will have at least one devoted subject, whatever may happen."
"I believe that with all my heart," she answered, in a tone and with a look of confidence and trust that thrilled me. Then she smiled very slightly, and added: "Even one subject may make a kingdom; though I"m sadly afraid I should not be the ruler of even such a realm."
I longed to turn her jest to earnest, and a.s.sure her that if she did not no one else ever should; but I pulled myself up on the verge, and remembered that, after all, I was an impostor, though loyal enough to her. And so I made no reply, and dared not even look at her.
After a pause she rose, and, with what sounded like a half-suppressed sigh, she went away.
I let her go, and it was not until she had left the room that the thought struck me that my silence might have seemed currish and curmudgeonly. Then I would have gone after her and told her, and I made a step toward the door; but the thought of what I should say and how to explain my meaning stopped me, and as I hesitated Captain von Krugen came in to resume the conference we had commenced during the drive from the station.
CHAPTER XII
MY SCHEME DEVELOPS
I took von Krugen into my confidence as to my discoveries and plans. I showed him the doc.u.ments I had brought back from Munich; told him of my meeting with Praga; the secret history of the duel which had ended young Gustav"s life; and, at the close, invited him to say plainly what he thought of the counter-scheme, and of our chances of carrying it through.
"It is about the only chance," he said, "and once on the throne there is no reason why the countess should not stay there."
"On the contrary, there are two overpowering reasons--her own disinclination, and the att.i.tude of the Imperial authorities at Berlin."
"There may be a third," he growled into his beard, looking sharply at me.
"What is that?" I asked, though I could almost guess his meaning. But he turned the question adroitly.
"That her Majesty would have little wish for a royal marriage with an imperially selected consort chosen by Berlin. Her Majesty has a heart, unfortunately, and G.o.d bless her for it."
"That will be all as she pleases," said I quietly. "At any rate, our purpose is to give her the opportunity of declining the throne, and to save her from these villains who would hound her down."
His face grew as dark as night.
"G.o.d! if that villain ever dares to cross her path again, I"ll run my sword through his carca.s.s, if I die the next minute; and if he doesn"t come near her, I"ll seek him out the moment this business is through, and make him fight me. He has put not one but a thousand insults on me--and he a traitor all the time. And to think the Prince believed in him implicitly to the last. And so did I."
"Maybe the Prince had not the private knowledge of the man that I had, nor had you," I said unguardedly.
My companion started and looked at me in such surprise that I saw my blunder in a moment.
"You had known him previously?" he asked slowly.
"I had known of him," I answered in a tone of indifference. "It"s a long story, and I may tell it you some day."
"It is not for me to question your Highness, of course, but I should never betray a confidence," he replied, piqued, as I thought, that I said no more; and for the moment I was hugely tempted to tell him the whole story.
It might be enormous value to have a stanch ally in my full confidence for the task I had to carry through; but, on the other hand, I could not tell how such a man would care to take his orders from an ex-play-actor, and I decided that I dared not run a risk at such a crisis. So I held my tongue, and sat as if my thoughts were busy with our plans.
"There is much to do, captain," I said at length, "and we must waste as little time as possible in consultation. In the first place, we have to keep open a means of communicating with Praga. Are you too well known in Munich to go backward and forward?"
"I fear so; but there is Steinitz. He is scarcely known at all there; but he has not yet returned from where you sent him."
I had forgotten altogether about him and his mission; and, now that the matter was recalled to me, the length of his absence gave me an uneasy twinge. There must be some very serious cause for so long a delay.