"So I was right when I called you faithless before the whole a.s.sembly that night!" he cried. "So you have fooled me from the first! Oh, was there ever such cunning? How I have been deceived by your guileless air, your innocent face, the truthful look of your eyes! Great G.o.d, is anything to be trusted in this world, when a woman who seems so pure and n.o.ble proves to be not only the harlot of a prince but the lying betrayer of an honest man, who loves her with all his soul? Why have you nothing to say?" he demanded, with a fresh access of rage. "Haven"t you the grace to defend yourself? Oh, for G.o.d"s sake, deceive me again! Lie to me, and I will believe you. Let me have any reason, even the smallest, to delude myself with the fancy that you are still mine. Deny these accusations! Deny that you expected the Landgrave here to-night."
"I cannot deny what is true," she said, quietly and sadly.
"Oh, you admit it!" he cried, wounded and enraged beyond all control.
"You brazen Jezebel, I will kill you!" He grasped her by the neck, and, as she yielded instantly to his movement, forced her to her knees. As he made to clutch her throat she threw back her head, disclosing the white and delicate skin on which he formerly would not have inflicted the tiniest scratch for the world. "Oh, I cannot," he sobbed, pressing his lips against the tender throat, and breaking down completely. "Oh, Catherine, Catherine!" He raised her, and stood with his arms enfolding her. But, after a moment, he released her and stepped back, saying, plaintively, "To think that you are not mine to embrace! To think that you are the Landgrave"s!"
"The Landgrave"s!" she echoed. "No, not yet the Landgrave"s, for you are not dead, and I am still a living woman."
"What do you mean?" asked d.i.c.k, startled into a kind of wild hope.
"He told me you were dead,--that you had been shot while trying to escape--"
"Who told you, Catherine? What do you mean? Tell me, quickly." He took her hand, and made her sit beside him on the couch.
"The Landgrave told me,--and Von Rothenstein, and others who were there. You see, I was at the hunt, with the Landgravine. We all heard of the terrible conspiracy, and of the arrests; and, while we were talking about it in the forest, the prisoners were taken by, where we could see them all,--the conspirators, arrested for high treason. And one of them was Gerard, my brother Gerard."
"And the whole court saw them led past?"
"Yes, with Gerard, my dear brother. When I was told that these men were going to prison and would surely be put to death--oh, it was terrible to think of,--my brother, little Gerard, as we used to call him, my mother and I. _Mon Dieu_, I would give my life to save him, and so I rode in search of the Landgrave, to beg that he would save Gerard. Some of the officers told me where to find him,--in the tower where the conspirators had been caught. I went there, and begged him on my knees for Gerard"s life. He sent away the Count von Rothenstein and the others who were there, and listened to me. At last he said there was a way in which I might save Gerard, though my brother was one of the officers of the band and deserved death even more than the others did. I said I would give my life to save Gerard"s,--for I knew that you, my love, would not blame me for that. But the Landgrave said it was not my life he wished, it was--"
"I understand!"
"I would not consent to that, even to save my brother. When the Landgrave became more urgent, and began to speak of my duty as a sister, I said that what he asked was not mine to give, that I was pledged to another. And then he told me you were dead, that you had been shot while trying to escape when the conspirators were captured. For a time I could not speak. He called back the minister of police and the others, and asked them to a.s.sure me that you had been killed. When I could no longer doubt, something seemed to have died within me. I felt that I was no longer a living woman, that my life had gone out at the news that you were dead."
"My poor beloved!"
"Then the Landgrave sent away the others, and spoke again of Gerard, saying that one of whose treason there was so much proof would certainly be condemned, and that only an arbitrary order of the sovereign could cause him to be released. The thought came to me that it was no longer a living woman that the Landgrave demanded for my brother"s life, that I was no more Catherine de St. Valier, and that if I should consent to save Gerard it would be giving the Landgrave not myself but a soulless corpse. Oh, do you not understand?"
"Yes, yes, _I_ understand. _I_ can imagine all you felt!"
"It was agreed that a messenger of the Landgrave should go with Antoine to Spangenberg, with everything necessary for Gerard"s release and his flight to France. The Landgrave was not to present himself before me until he could bring proofs, with Antoine as an eye-witness, of Gerard"s departure from Spangenberg. I was waiting for him when you came in by the window. So distracted I was, that, for the moment, I supposed the Landgrave had taken that way of entrance for the sake of greater secrecy."
"It was I, who, for the sake of secrecy, chose that way," said d.i.c.k. "I was shot at in escaping from the tower, but they were not my countrymen behind the muskets! I went back to the tower, and saw the Landgrave riding away, alone with a lady. While I was at the tower, a lackey came to seek the lady"s riding-whip. When he said the lady was you, and when I saw it was your whip he found, I was mad with jealousy and doubt, grief and fear, and I should have died had I not come to find out the truth. A friend, who had tried to hold me back, followed and overtook me outside the city, persuaded me to enter Ca.s.sel with caution, and offered me his aid. We left our horses in the woods outside the city, obtained a boat from a peasant, rowed down the Fulda after dark, and thus got into Ca.s.sel without crossing the bridge or meeting the guard. Romberg waited at the river while I hastened to the palace. I had learned from Gerard which was your window,--and, thank G.o.d, one can approach it without pa.s.sing near the guards at the palace doors. I climbed yonder tree--as I have climbed many a tree in America--and swung by a branch to the balcony." He had risen to point out the tree, and she had followed him.
"Thank G.o.d you came in time,--that I knew before it was too late!" she said, turning her eyes up to his with a grave and tender gaze.
"Thank G.o.d you still are mine!" he replied, clasping her again in his arms, and pressing a kiss upon her lips.
There came a cautious knock on the door. Catherine gave a start.
"The Landgrave," she whispered, "coming to the appointment!"
She gazed up at d.i.c.k, in questioning silence. Gretel, who evidently understood the situation, cast an inquiring look at Catherine, and stood as, if awaiting orders. No one in the room moved.
The knock was repeated. d.i.c.k had now made up his mind. "He brings proof of Gerard"s safety?" he whispered, interrogatively.
"Yes, or he would not be here," replied Catherine, under her breath.
d.i.c.k motioned Gretel to come close to him. "Open the door, in a moment,"
he said to the girl, "but do it in a fumbling way, so as to delay him as long as possible." d.i.c.k then led Catherine quickly into the alcove, the curtains closing behind them.
There was a third knock, a little louder and more insistent. But Gretel could now be heard at the door, which she first locked and then unlocked, in order to carry out d.i.c.k"s instructions. When she finally opened it, the Landgrave stepped swiftly in, retaining the noiseless tread he had used in the corridor. His triumphant, expectant face, when he saw only Gretel in the room, took on a look of sharp disappointment.
"The devil!" he said, in a kind of quick growl. "No one here?"
The maid, not knowing what to say, pretended to be absorbed in fastening the door, which she had promptly closed.
Noticing the curtained alcove, the Landgrave started towards it; but he had not crossed the room when Catherine appeared, instantly letting the curtains fall to behind her.
"At last, mademoiselle," said the Landgrave, joyfully, putting forth his hand to grasp her own.
But she stood back aloof, and said, "The proofs of my brother"s release, your highness?"
His highness received this temporary rebuff with resignation. "Be sure, I have brought them," he said. "Have the maid call your man-servant, who is in the corridor, arrived this minute from Spangenberg."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "FREDERICK II. RECOILED A STEP OR TWO."]
Gretel opened the door and called softly, "Antoine!" Immediately the old servant entered, bowing with a grave deference that was full of dignity. He wore riding-boots, and carried in one hand his hat and whip, in the other a folded piece of paper, which he now held out to Catherine. She took it to the candle-light, and read the few lines hastily scribbled in pencil. It was a message from Gerard, and told of his release.
"You saw him safe out of the prison?" she then asked Antoine.
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"On a good horse, and provided with money?" she continued, quoting from the letter.
"Yes, mademoiselle, with my own eyes; and well out of the town, with a pa.s.sport to a.s.sure his not being stopped anywhere on the road."
"Then wait in the corridor, Antoine. Will you, too, Gretel, wait there?"
The Landgrave looked surprised at these orders, but, before he could put his disapprobation into more than a frown, the two servants had left the room. Catherine stepped at once to the door, locked it, withdrew the key, and started towards the alcove. The Landgrave"s frown gave way to a smile of eager gratification, and he made to grasp her in his arms as she pa.s.sed him. But she eluded his embrace, and ran towards the alcove.
With a look of amused enlightenment, as if he thought her flight a mere trick of coquetry, he ran after her; but his arms, again extended in the hope of clasping her, closed on nothing as the curtains fell behind her.
His highness laughed, and, pressing forward, opened the curtains to follow her.
And, instead of the woman he had thought himself about to possess, he saw, standing where the curtains met, that woman"s lover, the man he had tried to destroy, the man he had reported dead, the man for whom his soldiers were even now scouring the roads in the vicinity of his capital.
The look on that man"s face added nothing to the Landgrave"s pleasure at the unexpected meeting.
Frederick II. recoiled a step or two, and stood for a moment as if petrified, his jaw moving spasmodically without producing any speech.
d.i.c.k stepped out from between the curtains, keeping his eyes fixed on the Landgrave"s. Catherine now stood looking forth from the alcove, affrightedly watching for what terrible thing might next occur.
The Landgrave recovered himself, and made for the door.
"You forget it is locked," said d.i.c.k. "It is true, you might call for help, but if you did I should kill you. Do not look incredulous. I know that ordinarily you are a sovereign prince, with a people and an army behind you, and that I am a hunted man, the least powerful in your dominion. But at this moment we are on fairer terms, with just what powers nature gave us, except that I have a sword and you have not. So now it is the weaker man that is my subject, the stronger man that is your prince!"
The Landgrave looked at the door, d.i.c.k"s sword, then at Catherine.
"Treachery!" he said, in a voice deprived of strength by his feelings.
"For this I freed your brother, mademoiselle, trusting you implicitly.