"Aribert!" The faint call came from the bed. Aribert went to the bedside, while Nella remained near the window.
"What is it, Eugen?" he said. "You are better now."
"You think so?" murmured the other. "I want you to forgive me for all this, Aribert. I must have caused you an intolerable trouble. I did it so clumsily; that is what annoys me. Laudanum was a feeble expedient; but I could think of nothing else, and I daren"t ask anyone for advice.
I was obliged to go out and buy the stuff for myself. It was all very awkward.
But, thank goodness, it has not been ineffectual."
"What do you mean, Eugen? You are better. In a day or so you will be perfectly recovered."
"I am dying," said Eugen quietly. "Do not be deceived. I die because I wish to die. It is bound to be so. I know by the feel of my heart. In a few hours it will be over. The throne of Posen will be yours, Aribert.
You will fill it more worthily than I have done. Don"t let them know over there that I poisoned myself. Swear Hans to secrecy; swear the doctors to secrecy; and breathe no word yourself. I have been a fool, but I do not wish it to be known that I was also a coward. Perhaps it is not cowardice; perhaps it is courage, after all--courage to cut the knot. I could not have survived the disgrace of any revelations, Aribert, and revelations would have been sure to come. I have made a fool of myself, but I am ready to pay for it. We of Posen--we always pay--everything except our debts. Ah! those debts! Had it not been for those I could have faced her who was to have been my wife, to have shared my throne. I could have hidden my past, and begun again. With her help I really could have begun again. But Fate has been against me-- always! always! By the way, what was that plot against me, Aribert? I forget, I forget."
His eyes closed. There was a sudden noise. Old Hans had slipped from his chair to the floor. He picked himself up, dazed, and crept shamefacedly out of the room.
Aribert took his nephew"s hand.
"Nonsense, Eugen! You are dreaming. You will be all right soon. Pull yourself together."
"All because of a million," the sick man moaned. "One miserable million English pounds. The national debt of Posen is fifty millions, and I, the Prince of Posen, couldn"t borrow one. If I could have got it, I might have held my head up again. Good-bye, Aribert.... Who is that girl?"
Aribert looked up. Nella was standing silent at the foot of the bed, her eyes moist. She came round to the bedside, and put her hand on the patient"s heart. Scarcely could she feel its pulsation, and to Aribert her eyes expressed a sudden despair.
At that moment Hans re-entered the room and beckoned to her.
"I have heard that Herr Racksole has returned to the hotel," he whispered, "and that he has captured that man Jules, who they say is such a villain."
Several times during the night Nella inquired for her father, but could gain no knowledge of his whereabouts. Now, at half-past six in the morning, a rumour had mysteriously spread among the servants of the hotel about the happenings of the night before. How it had originated no one could have determined, but it had originated.
"Where is my father?" Nella asked of Hans.
He shrugged his shoulders, and pointed upwards. "Somewhere at the top, they say."
Nella almost ran out of the room. Her interruption of the interview between Jules and Theodore Racksole has already been described. As she came downstairs with her father she said again, "Prince Eugen is dying-- but I think you can save him."
"I?" exclaimed Theodore.
"Yes," she repeated positively. "I will tell you what I want you to do, and you must do it."
Chapter Twenty-Nine THEODORE IS CALLED TO THE RESCUE
AS Nella pa.s.sed downstairs from the top storey with her father--the lifts had not yet begun to work--she drew him into her own room, and closed the door.
"What"s this all about?" he asked, somewhat mystified, and even alarmed by the extreme seriousness of her face.
"Dad," the girl began, "you are very rich, aren"t you? very, very rich?"
She smiled anxiously, timidly. He did not remember to have seen that expression on her face before. He wanted to make a facetious reply, but checked himself.
"Yes," he said, "I am. You ought to know that by this time."
"How soon could you realize a million pounds?"
"A million--what?" he cried. Even he was staggered by her calm reference to this gigantic sum. "What on earth are you driving at?"
"A million pounds, I said. That is to say, five million dollars. How soon could you realize as much as that?"
"Oh!" he answered, "in about a month, if I went about it neatly enough.
I could unload as much as that in a month without scaring Wall Street and other places. But it would want some arrangement."
"Useless!" she exclaimed. "Couldn"t you do it quicker, if you really had to?"
"If I really had to, I could fix it in a week, but it would make things lively, and I should lose on the job."
"Couldn"t you," she persisted, "couldn"t you go down this morning and raise a million, somehow, if it was a matter of life and death?"
He hesitated. "Look here, Nella," he said, "what is it you"ve got up your sleeve?"
"Just answer my question, Dad, and try not to think that I"m a stark, staring lunatic."
"I rather expect I could get a million this morning, even in London. But it would cost pretty dear. It might cost me fifty thousand pounds, and there would be the d.i.c.kens of an upset in New York--a sort of grand universal slump in my holdings."
"Why should New York know anything about it?"
"Why should New York know anything about it!" he repeated. "My girl, when anyone borrows a million sovereigns the whole world knows about it.
Do you reckon that I can go up to the Governors of the Bank of England and say, "Look here, lend Theodore Racksole a million for a few weeks, and he"ll give you an IOU and a covering note on stocks"?"
"But you could get it?" she asked again.
"If there"s a million in London I guess I could handle it," he replied.
"Well, Dad," and she put her arms round his neck, "you"ve just got to go out and fix it. See? It"s for me. I"ve never asked you for anything really big before. But I do now. And I want it so badly."
He stared at her. "I award you the prize," he said, at length. "You deserve it for colossal and immense coolness. Now you can tell me the true inward meaning of all this rigmarole. What is it?"
"I want it for Prince Eugen," she began, at first hesitatingly, with pauses.
"He"s ruined unless he can get a million to pay off his debts. He"s dreadfully in love with a Princess, and he can"t marry her because of this.
Her parents wouldn"t allow it. He was to have got it from Sampson Levi, but he arrived too late--owing to Jules."
"I know all about that--perhaps more than you do. But I don"t see how it affects you or me."
"The point is this, Dad," Nella continued. "He"s tried to commit suicide--he"s so hipped. Yes, real suicide. He took laudanum last night.