Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof for what you believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed to respect your conclusions."
"You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a belief in the marvelous--for what I have experienced is marvelous--and I have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which ran counter, diametrically, to all my theories. I have been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy."
Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General"s penetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the General, with, as I thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity.
The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily and curiously into the glades and vistas of the woods that were opening before us.
"You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?" he said. "Yes, it is a lucky coincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there to inspect them. I have a special object in exploring. There is a ruined chapel, ain"t there, with a great many tombs of that extinct family?"
"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are thinking of claiming the t.i.tle and estates?"
My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh, or even the smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend"s joke; on the contrary, he looked grave and even fierce, ruminating on a matter that stirred his anger and horror.
"Something very different," he said, gruffly. "I mean to unearth some of those fine people. I hope, by G.o.d"s blessing, to accomplish a pious sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters, and enable honest people to sleep in their beds without being a.s.sailed by murderers. I have strange things to tell you, my dear friend, such as I myself would have scouted as incredible a few months since."
My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm.
"The house of Karnstein," he said, "has been long extinct: a hundred years at least. My dear wife was maternally descended from the Karnsteins. But the name and t.i.tle have long ceased to exist. The castle is a ruin; the very village is deserted; it is fifty years since the smoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof left."
"Quite true. I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you; a great deal that will astonish you. But I had better relate everything in the order in which it occurred," said the General. "You saw my dear ward--my child, I may call her. No creature could have been more beautiful, and only three months ago none more blooming."
"Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite lovely,"
said my father. "I was grieved and shocked more than I can tell you, my dear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you."
He took the General"s hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure. Tears gathered in the old soldier"s eyes. He did not seek to conceal them.
He said:
"We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childless as I am. She had become an object of very near interest to me, and repaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and made my life happy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be very long; but by G.o.d"s mercy I hope to accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who have murdered my poor child in the spring of her hopes and beauty!"
"You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it occurred," said my father. "Pray do; I a.s.sure you that it is not mere curiosity that prompts me."
By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, by which the General had come, diverges from the road which we were traveling to Karnstein.
"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously forward.
"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story you were so good as to promise."
XI
_The Story_
"With all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a short pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest narratives I ever heard.
"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter." Here he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had an invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about six leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the series of fetes which, you remember, were given by him in honor of his ill.u.s.trious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles."
"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father.
"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has Aladdin"s lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificent masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with colored lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had never witnessed. And such music--music, you know, is my weakness--such ravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world, and the finest singers who could be collected from all the great operas in Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated grounds, the moon-lighted chateau throwing a rosy light from its long rows of windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing from the silence of some grove, or rising from boats upon the lake. I felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back into the romance and poetry of my early youth.
"When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned to the n.o.ble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked ball, you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle of the kind I never saw before.
"It was a very aristocratic a.s.sembly. I was myself almost the only "n.o.body" present.
"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features, always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with extraordinary interest. I had seen her, earlier in the evening, in the great hall, and again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on the terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon.
"Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could, of course, have been much more certain upon the question whether she was really watching my poor darling.
"I am now well a.s.sured that she was.
"We were now in one of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing, and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I was standing near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached and the younger took the chair next my ward; while her companion stood beside me, and for a little time addressed herself, in a low tone, to her charge.
"Availing herself of the privilege of her mask, she turned to me, and in the tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened a conversation with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. She referred to many scenes where she had met me--at Court, and at distinguished houses. She alluded to little incidents which I had long ceased to think of, but which, I found, had only lain in abeyance in my memory, for they instantly started into life at her touch.
"I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was, every moment.
She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The knowledge she showed of many pa.s.sages in my life seemed to me all but unaccountable; and she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity, and in seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity, from one conjecture to another.
"In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name of Millarca, when she once or twice addressed her, had, with the same ease and grace, got into conversation with my ward.
"She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very old acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask rendered practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused her with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom, and laughed at my poor child"s fun. She was very witty and lively when she pleased, and after a time they had grown very good friends, and the young stranger lowered her mask, displaying a remarkably beautiful face.
I had never seen it before, neither had my dear child. But though it was new to us, the features were so engaging, as well as lovely, that it was impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully. My poor girl did so. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless, indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her heart to her.
"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put not a few questions to the elder lady.
""You have puzzled me utterly," I said, laughing. "Is that not enough?
Won"t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness to remove your mask?"
""Can any request be more unreasonable?" she replied. "Ask a lady to yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognize me?
Years make changes."
""As you see," I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy little laugh.
""As philosophers tell us," she said; "and how do you know that a sight of my face would help you?"
""I should take chance for that," I answered. "It is vain trying to make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you."
""Years, nevertheless, have pa.s.sed since I saw you, rather since you saw me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter; I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange."
""My pet.i.tion is to your pity, to remove it."
""And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is," she replied.
""Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or German; you speak both languages so perfectly."
""I don"t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, and are meditating the particular point of attack."
""At all events, you won"t deny this," I said, "that being honored by your permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?"