"The road to Wilicza lies all the way through a forest as thick as this."
Waldemar smiled slightly.
"That is nothing new to me. I pa.s.s along it often enough."
"But not on foot and at dusk! Do you not know, or will you not own to yourself, that there is danger for you in these journeys?"
The smile vanished from Nordeck"s face, giving way to its accustomed gravity. "If I had had any doubt of that, I should have been enlightened by the bullet which, not long ago, as I was coming home from the border-station, sped so close by my head that it ruffled my hair. The marksman did not show himself. He was probably ashamed of his--unskilfulness."
"Well, after such an experience, it is really challenging danger to ride out so constantly quite alone," cried Wanda, who could not altogether conceal her alarm at this news.
"I never go unarmed," replied Waldemar, "and no companion could protect me against a shot fired in ambush. In the present state of affairs at Wilicza, my personal ascendancy is the one influence which still avails. If I show fear and take all sorts of precautionary measures, there will be an end to my authority. If I continue to face all their attacks alone, they will desist from them."
"But suppose that bullet had not missed," said Wanda, with a little quiver in her voice. "You see how near the danger was."
The young man bent half over her seat.
"Was it a desire to avert from me some such peril as this which made you insist on my coming with you?"
"Yes," was the hardly audible reply.
An earnest rejoinder was on his lips; but some sudden remembrance flashing through his mind, he suddenly drew himself erect and, grasping the reins more firmly, said with a rush of the old bitterness--
"You will find it hard to justify such a desire in the eyes of your party, Countess Morynska."
She turned completely round to him now, and her eye met his.
"It may be so, for you have openly avowed yourself our enemy. It lay with you to make peace; instead of that you have declared war upon us."
"I did what necessity compelled me to do. You forget that my father was a German."
"And your mother is a Pole."
"Ah, you need not remind me of it in that reproachful tone," said Waldemar. "The unhappy division of interests has cost me too much for me ever to lose sight of it for an instant. It was the cause of my parents" separation. It poisoned my childhood, embittered my youth, and robbed me of my mother. She would perhaps have loved me as she loves her Leo if I had been a Baratowski. That I was my father"s son has been my gravest offence in her eyes. If now we stand politically opposed to each other, that is only a consequence of past events."
"Which you logically, inexorably, carry out to its extreme limits,"
cried Wanda, flashing into anger. "Any other man would have sought for some means of reconciliation, some compromise, which must have been possible between mother and son."
"Perhaps between any other mother and son, but not between the Princess Baratowska and me. She gave me the choice of surrendering Wilicza and myself, bound hand and foot, into her hands to serve her interests, or to declare myself at war with her. I chose the latter alternative, and she takes good care that there shall be no truce, not even for a day.
Were it not that the contest for dominion is still going on, she would long since have left me. She certainly does not stay on my account."
Wanda made no reply. She knew he was right, and the conviction was now forcing itself on her mind that this man, held on all sides to be cold and unfeeling, was in reality most keenly and bitterly sensitive to all that was painful in his position towards his mother. In the rare moments when he disclosed his secret feelings, this subject always came uppermost. The thought of his mother"s indifference to himself and of her boundless love for her younger son had stung the boy"s soul years ago; it rankled yet in the heart of the man.
They soon emerged from the forest, and the horses quickly resuming their former swift pace, Rakowicz shortly afterwards appeared in the distance. Waldemar would have turned into the main road which led thither, but Wanda pointed in another direction.
"Please let me get out at the entrance to the village. I shall like the little walk home, and you can go straight on to Wilicza."
Nordeck looked at her a moment in silence. "That means, you do not venture to appear at Rakowicz in my company. I was forgetting that the people about would never forgive you for it. To be sure--we are enemies."
"We are so through your fault alone," declared Wanda. "No one compelled you to act as our foe. Our struggle is not with your country or countrymen, it will be fought out yonder on foreign soil."
"And supposing your party to be victorious on that soil," asked Waldemar, slowly and pointedly, "whose turn will it be next?"
The young Countess was silent.
"Well, we will not discuss that," said Nordeck, resignedly. "It may have been some secret necessity of Nature which drove your father and Leo into the fight; but the same necessity urges me to resistance. My brother"s task is indeed easier than mine. One way has been marked out for him, both by birth and family tradition, and he has gone that way without the pain of making a choice, or of causing dissension. Neither of these troubles has been spared me. It is not in my nature to vacillate between two contending parties without giving in my adhesion to one or to the other. I must declare myself friend or foe to a cause.
What the choice has cost me, none need know. No matter, I have chosen; and where I have once taken my stand, I will remain. Leo throws himself into the struggle full of glowing enthusiasm; his highest ideal is before him; he is supported by the love and admiration of his friends.
I stand alone at my post, where possibly death by a.s.sa.s.sination, where surely hatred awaits me, a hatred in which all Wilicza, my mother and brother--and you, too, unite, Wanda. The lots have been unevenly divided; but I have never been spoiled by over much love and affection.
I shall be able to bear it. So go on hating me, Wanda. It is perhaps best for us both."
While speaking, he had driven forward in the prescribed direction, and now drew up just at the entrance to the village, which lay before them still and, as it were, lifeless. Swinging himself from his seat, he would have helped the young Countess to alight; but she waved his hand away, and got out of the sledge without a.s.sistance. No single word of leave-taking pa.s.sed her tightly closed lips. She merely bowed her head in mute farewell.
Waldemar had drawn back. Once again the deep lines of pain showed plainly on his face, and the hand which grasped the reins was clenched convulsively. Her repulse evidently wounded him to the quick.
"I will send the sledge back to-morrow," said he in a cold and distant tone--"with my thanks, if you will not decline them, as you decline my slightest service."
Wanda appeared to be struggling with herself. She half turned as though to go; but lingered yet an instant.
"Herr Nordeck."
"What is your pleasure, Countess Morynska?"
"I ... You must promise me not again wilfully to challenge danger as you would have done to-day. You are right, the hatred of all Wilicza is directed against you at the present time. Do not give your enemies so good a chance--do not, I entreat of you."
A deep flush overspread Waldemar"s face at these words. He cast one look at her, one single look; but at that glance all the bitterness went out from him.
"I will be more prudent," he answered, in a low voice.
"Good-bye, then."
She turned from him and took the path leading to the village. Nordeck gazed after her until she disappeared behind one of the nearest farm-buildings, then he swung himself into the sledge again, and drove off swiftly in the direction of Wilicza, the road soon taking him back into the forest. He had drawn his pistol from his breast-pocket and laid it within easy reach; and, whilst he handled the reins with unaccustomed caution, his eye kept a vigilant watch between the trees.
This defiant, inflexible man, who knew no fear, had suddenly grown careful and prudent; he had promised to be so, and he had now learned that there was one being who trembled for _his_ life also, who longed to avert danger from him.
CHAPTER X.
Rakowicz, the residence of Count Morynski, could in no respect compare with Wilicza. Quite apart from the fact that the latter property covered ten times as much ground, and contained three or four separate leased-off estates, each of an extent equal to the Morynski domain, the magnificent forests, the Castle and n.o.ble park were all wanting here.
Rakowicz lay in an open country about three miles from L----, and differed little or nothing from the other gentlemen"s seats scattered about the province.
Since her father"s departure Wanda had lived on at home alone. Though, under other circ.u.mstances, her removal to Wilicza would have appeared a matter of course, it now seemed very natural that Count Morynski"s daughter should avoid the Castle, its master having a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of avowed hostility to her friends and their cause. Even the Princess"s continued stay at her son"s house excited some wonder. As has been said, the latter lady often came over to Rakowicz to see her niece; she was there now on a visit of several days. No mention had as yet been made of Wanda"s accidental meeting with Waldemar, her aunt having only arrived on the evening following her return from that expedition. Two days later, the ladies were sitting together in the young Countess"s morning-room. They had just received news from the seat of war, and still held the letters open in their hands; but there appeared to be little in them of a joyful nature, for Wanda looked very grave, and the Princess"s face was overcast and full of care as she at last laid down the missives from her brother and Leo.
"Repulsed again!" said she, with repressed emotion. "They had reached the heart of the land, and now they are on the borders once more. Never anything decisive, no success worth mentioning. It almost makes one despair!"
Wanda, too, laid down the letter she had been reading. "My father writes in a very gloomy strain," she answered; "he is almost worn out with the perpetual efforts to hold in check all the conflicting elements in his army. Everybody will command, no one will obey--there is growing disunion among the leaders. How will it all end!"
"Your father allows himself to be influenced by the melancholy which forms part of his character," said the Princess, more calmly. "After all, it is natural to suppose that a host of volunteers, hurrying under arms at the first call, cannot possess the order and discipline of a well-trained army. Time and practice are necessary for that."