Asto Helene herself, the days and weeks passed by without her knowledge. Once only since the accident had she waked to a brief interval of full consciousness, and that was when the old home voices first penetrated her dulled ear. Her father and mother were in the room as well as Usk, and she lay looking at them without their perceiving it, making no attempt to speak. But when the Grand-Duchess broke down and wept stormily, crying out to Usk, “You stole her away from us, and this is the way you take care of her!” the injustice of the speech moved her to protest. She tried to speak, but no words would come, and though Usk met her anguished eyes, and nodded reassuringly at her, she could not vindicate him. She saw her father lay his hand upon his shoulder, as though he felt he was unjustly accused, but the Grand-Duchess was evidently implacable. Helene still struggled to speak, but the effort was too great, and she relapsed into immobility, which yet was not complete unconsciousness, for she was very conscious of pain, although the outer world was a blank to her. To herself she seemed to be borne and buffeted on a sea of pain; she sounded its lowest depths, and was carried up to the height of its hugest waves. There was the pain which attacked her in a succession of violent shocks, like billows breaking over a helpless shipwrecked man on a rocky shore, and swept her away at last into such agony that she was forced to scream; and the pain which crept upwards slowly and gradually, like a gently rising tide, until her whole frame seemed nothing but one dull, paralysing ache, and all kinds and degrees of pain between these two extremes. She battled against this sea, she thought, although in some strange way the sound of the breakers and the throb of the rising waves was inside her head and not outside, as though she was playing the traitor to herself, but it attacked her persistently in fresh ways, and she felt that it must prove the stronger at last. But just when her strength was altogether at an end, and she knew that she could struggle no longer, the necessity for struggling ceased. There was no sea at all, either rough or smooth, and she was drifting gently down a broad calm river. Sometimes she had glimpses of scenes on the banks, sometimes she heard strange toneless voices speaking loudly, although she could not distinguish what they said, but she never saw any place or person or heard any voice that she knew. Most often, although the sensation of floating continued, the sights before her eyes were merely complicated patterns, endless in diversity and colour, which melted one into another like those of a kaleidoscope. It was very interesting to watch them, and she followed their changes eagerly, drifting down the river all the time.
There came disquieting interruptions to her enjoyment at last. Voices called to her—not the unknown voices of her visions, but voices that she knew—called to her earnestly, entreatingly, forcing themselves upon her attention when she desired only to watch the moving patterns. She felt a kind of resentment against these voices—a sort of malicious satisfaction in the fact that she could not answer their appeals, for there seemed to be a weight on her lips that kept them from moving. If only the voices would leave her in peace! There they were again, calling: “Lenchen, Lenchen! my little Lenchen! look at me, speak to me!” Before her eyes was a dun expanse flecked by splashes of colour that came and went, and against this background shadowy discs and half-discs appeared vaguely, took definite shape, became flaming and metallic, and vanished slowly away, as she watched them with breathless interest. She could not answer the cry that reached her, for the weight was still upon her lips, but it banished the vision, and in its place she saw a curious patchwork of many shapes and colours and patterns, something like the mosaic which industrious persons construct with small pieces of broken china sunk in cement. This also was interesting, although it had not the fascination of those advancing and receding discs, and she was watching the mosaic brighten and fade and re-group itself in new designs, when another voice broke in upon the dream, and made it vanish in its turn.
“Nell! Nell!” the voice cried, in tones of agony, and for the first time Helene felt an impulse to answer. But the weight was still upon her lips, and on the whole she was glad of it. Turning aside, as it were, petulantly from the call, she set herself joyfully to the contemplation of a myriad tiny bunches of pink-tipped daisies, floating in an atmosphere of dark dull green, which appealed to her almost more than all that had gone before. Nothing could be lovelier than this. Would it stay? would the daisy-buds unfold, or would they vanish into something else? Helene never knew, for into the midst of her vision came another sound, clear and distinct, the sound of a sob, before which the vision departed suddenly. She opened her eyes. There seemed to be no one in the room, but the sound of another sob guided her eyes to where Usk was kneeling beside the bed, his face hidden in the coverlid. The sight awoke Helene to pity and concern at once.
“Why, Nym!” she said, but her voice was the smallest, faintest whisper, and when she tried to stretch out her hand to lay it on the dark head just beyond her reach, she found that she could barely lift a finger. Usk heard the whisper, however, and as he lifted his head Helene had an odd feeling that the changes of which she had seen so many in her dreams were still going on, for his face was convulsed with pain when he raised it first, but as she looked at him she saw that he was smiling at her. It was most perplexing, but she smiled back at him, and then felt more perplexed still, for those warm drops that fell on her hand as he kissed it were certainly tears.
“Why, Nym!” she said again; and then suddenly, after a pause, “Nym, are you crying because I am going to die?”
“No—nonsense!—Of course not——” but his voice failed.
“I am so glad,” said Helene, smiling radiantly, and Usk was cut to the heart. Had it come to this, that he had so utterly failed to make her happy that she was glad to die and leave him? But she was holding his hand fast.
“Sit beside me, Nym—close,” she said eagerly, though her voice was so weak that he was obliged to lean over her to hear what she was saying, “and hold my hand. Don’t let me drift down the river any more. If I do, I shall drift away, I know. Speak to me, call out to me, if you see me drifting, and hold my hand, so that you can pull me back.”
“Are you afraid of going to sleep, dear?”
“No. I should like to sleep, but it is the river. It is pleasant—oh, so pleasant! but it will carry me away. Only you can keep me back, Nym. Your voice has driven the visions away. I think I could sleep safely if you put your arm round me, for I couldn’t drift then. You won’t let me go, will you?”
Not understanding in the least what she meant, and half inclined to think that she was still delirious, Usk passed his left arm under her head, still holding her right hand firmly in his own. Presently her eyes closed, but almost immediately they opened once more as she cried, “Oh, I was drifting again! Hold me, Nym; hold me!”
“I have got you quite safe,” he answered, and at last she dropped asleep. Usk, trying to change his cramped position without waking her, happened to look towards the door, and saw the Grand-Duchess standing there, beckoning imperiously to him to come away. He shook his head, and tried to intimate that Helene must not be waked. His mother-in-law crept up to the bed.
“You have disturbed her!” she whispered angrily. “You have dared to move her! You may have killed my poor child!”
“No; I have saved her, I think,” Usk whispered back. “She asked me to hold her.”
“She asked you! She has spoken, then?”
“Yes. She seemed pleased to find me here, and as long as she wants me I shall stay.” He could not bring himself to mention the words which had wounded him so sorely. He had taken his one small piece of revenge on the Grand-Duchess for the reproaches she had heaped upon him, and he would not put another weapon into her hand immediately.
“And after all, she turns to you instead of to me!” said Helene’s mother, desolately; and Usk forbore to say that he could not conscientiously see any reason why she should not. He maintained his position, despite cramp and stiffness, until Helene awoke, and recognised her mother, and in the joy of that fact he and the Grand-Duchess buried their enmity. It would be long before Helene could return to her old active life,—there were weary months of pain and languor before her; but at least she would not slip out of life through sheer lack of interest in it, as she had been doing when Usk’s voice recalled her. And yet, while the Grand-Duchess was unfeignedly grateful for her daughter’s hope of recovery, and really glad she was happy with her husband, a curious maternal jealousy made it impossible for her ever to forget that it was Usk’s voice, and not her own, which had brought Helene back from death.
“Nym,” said Helene to her husband one day, in a puzzled tone, “why does mamma think you are not kind to me?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, unless you have told her so. I haven’t done anything particularly brutal just lately, have I?”
“Nym! as if I could be so wicked as to say things against you! But she seems to think the accident was your fault, and I have told her over and over again that it was mine for laying hold of the whip. And she blames the dear Count too, and nothing I can say will put it right.”
“Well, perhaps you made shocking revelations in your delirium. I know you nearly broke my heart one day by something you said.”
“Something I said? What was it?”
“You said you were glad to be going to die.”
“I didn’t! I couldn’t! To leave you!”
“I’ll take my oath of it. You asked me if that was why I was crying.”
“Of course! I knew it! It was because you were crying that I was glad—to think you were so sorry to lose me.”
“Well, this is startling and gratifying, I must say, after all my heroic determination to make you glad that you were alive, after all.”
“Did you determine to make me glad I was alive, Nym? What were you going to do? Tell me.”
“Why, I thought I would take you home—to England, I mean—by sea, before the winter gales begin, and that we would stay at Llandiarmid for a bit. I meant to get a low pony-carriage to drive you about in, and I thought we would spend whole days in the woods as long as it was warm enough. You don’t know what the Llandiarmid woods are in autumn, Nell—how black the yew-trees look among the oaks and beeches on the river-cliff, and how pretty the golden birches are against the Scotch firs. And I thought we would take long drives, and stop at the farmhouses, and the tenants’ wives would come out to be introduced to you, and tell you what a wretch of a husband you had got hold of, and ask if you wouldn’t have a sup of new milk to bring some colour into your cheeks. And my mother would pet you, of course, and get so fond of you that I should have to forbid your going into the village with her, lest I should see nothing of you myself. And then perhaps you might be well enough about the end of November to come up to Southumberland with me, if the General Election was on then—not to canvass, of course, but just to go about with me and attract votes by looking so miserably pale, as if I ill-treated you, you know. That’s just what I thought, you see.”
“And now?” asked Helene breathlessly, smiling and flushing.
“Oh, now it’s unnecessary, isn’t it?”
“Couldn’t you pretend it was necessary, Nym?”
“Oh, you like the programme, do you? Then we will pretend it’s necessary, Nell. Every evening I shall ask you, ‘Are you glad yet that you’re alive?’ and you will be hard-hearted, and say, ‘Not yet.’”
“No, I shan’t,” said Helene, growing pink again. “I am glad because you are—because you don’t repent. You don’t, do you?”
“Repent what? Nell, don’t be a baby.”
“Oh, I have made you angry!—but you know what I mean. You don’t mind having married me instead of Félicia, do you? I just want to hear you say it—only that.”
“I’m not angry, but I should be if you were not such a child. Have I deserved this, Nell? I can’t say that I have never thought of Félicia since I married you, but I can say that I never think of her without being thankful I didn’t marry her. And you have been treasuring up that old piece of foolishness against me all this time!”
“I haven’t! I haven’t! It came over me suddenly that I wanted to hear you say it, though I knew it quite well. And I had a reason, Nym. You don’t mind my not telling you what it is, do you? You will know very soon. I want to ask Aunt Ernestine something first.”
“Shall I ask her to come and see you?”
“Oh, please do. And you are not really angry, Nym?”
“No, I am not. But it would serve you right if I said I was, you little mischief-maker!” But Helene’s blissful smile did not look as though the epithet troubled her.
“Well, Lenchen darling?” asked the Queen as she came in; “what is it you want me to do?”
“It isn’t anything for myself,” said Helene, somewhat timidly. “It’s—it’s just that I have been thinking so much about Michael and Félicia, and I wondered why you didn’t go and speak to her yourself.”
“Why, what good could I do, Lenchen? My husband has tried, your father has tried, Mr Hicks has tried, and she won’t listen to any of them.”
“Yes, I know. But you see, Aunt Ernestine, I don’t think they have any of them taken her the right way. Papa tells her that she will create a European scandal, and disgrace all her relations, and she doesn’t mind that a bit. The dear Count reminds her that people will say horrid things about her, and that she won’t be received at Vindobona, and she rather glories in it. Mr Hicks tells her that her money is invested in Thracia, and she may lose a good deal of it, and she says she doesn’t care. When they told her even that the Thracian Legislature would dissolve the marriage if she wouldn’t come back, she was startled at first, but she only said she would chance it. Oh, I know exactly what they would each say. I make mamma tell me all about it. But no one has gone to her yet simply as a woman. There must be some way of reaching her and working on her feelings, you know, and you are Michael’s mother, you love them both—why don’t you do it?”
“My little Lenchen, I am afraid I have only thought how wicked it was of her to leave Michael, and it wouldn’t soften her much to hear that.”
“Ah, but you will think of her side of it too?” asked Helene earnestly. “I think she must be terribly miserable all this time. Just imagine if I had run away from Usk, how I should feel!”
“I fear there isn’t much likeness between you and Félicia, Lenchen,” said the Queen, kissing her. “But I have always intended to see what I could do if all other means failed, and I will try now instead of waiting any longer. And I will try to look at the matter from her point of view.”
Thus it was that when Cyril made his next journey across the mountains to Paranati, his wife accompanied him. She was slightly nervous as to her reception on board the Bluebird, for her conscience told her that Helene’s words were true. In her horror at Félicia’s unheard-of behaviour, she had forgotten to inquire whether Félicia might seem to herself to have sufficient reason for it. What Cyril thought of her sudden determination to go with him she did not know, for he refused to discuss the situation with her, lest Félicia should suspect her of having been primed by him. Maimie, who had come on shore to meet them, looked at her keenly, but was equally reticent. Of her Queen Ernestine was a little afraid, not knowing whether to regard her as Félicia’s evil genius or as a moderating influence, and she did not like to question her as to Félicia’s feelings. Félicia herself looked thinner and a little worn, and the Queen wondered whether it wasennuithat was telling upon her, or a sense of her equivocal position, as impressed upon her by Cyril and the Grand-Duke. She rebuked herself immediately for lack of charity, and wondered why she could not simply believe that Félicia really cared for Michael, and was regretting the step she had taken. But this she found impossible, which was a bad beginning to her mission.
“Well,” said Félicia suddenly, when they were alone together, “why are you come? I guess it wasn’t just for your health. Did Mr Hicks send you?”
“No; certainly not,” answered Queen Ernestine, taken aback by the tone and accent of the question as much as by its drift, “but I should have been very glad to come sooner if I had known you would like to see me.”
Félicia laughed scornfully. “Mr Hicks thought he would get you here and have you talk me over, but I told him if he said a single word to you I wouldn’t see you when you came. But why did you come, any way?”
“It was not Mr Hicks who sent me. It was my niece Helene, Usk’s wife.”
“Do tell! Is she so happy that she wants to see every one else happy too?”
“I think that was her feeling.”
“Oh, it wasn’t because if I remained unattached I might attract her husband away from her?”
“I am quite certain she had no thought of the kind. She has no fear for her husband, and she need have none.” The Queen spoke strongly, for the suggestion had made her angry, but it occurred to her that this was not a very propitious opening to the interview. She drew nearer to her daughter-in-law. “Félicia,” she said, “you believe I wish you well, don’t you? My only desire is to see you and Michael living happily together. Do you feel it quite impossible”—she hesitated a little over the form of the question—“to return to him.”
“Quite,” answered Félicia calmly. “The insult was too great. He had absolutely no excuse for his conduct.”
“I don’t want to palliate it, but—had he any reason to think you would listen patiently if he spoke to you first? Was there such confidence between you that his jealousy was palpably unreasonable?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Félicia, sitting up in her chair, her eyes flashing. “If you are trying to shift the blame on to me——”
“I am not, believe me. All I mean is that you and Michael together had treated Usk very cruelly. Had Michael any guarantee that you would not treat him in the same way if you could?”
“I don’t know,” with a superb gesture of disdain. “I just expect to be trusted without any question of guarantees. Your son has had to learn that, and I guess the world will know it too before long.”
“But, Félicia, you must make allowances for Michael. I don’t defend his action, but will you not forgive it? I believe he really loves you, and I think he must have had some idea of satisfying his mind without entering on a disagreeable subject with you.”
“But he broke open my bureau to read my letters,” Félicia persisted.
“I know—but he has been punished for it. And he is anxious for your forgiveness, and has done all he could to shield your name.”
“Oh, that’s the Baroness’s doing,” said Félicia lazily.
“You make it very hard for me to plead for him. Surely, Félicia, you must have a little kindness left for him—the man you promised to love and honour?”
“I thought it was generally understood that those promises were made because one couldn’t get married without them,” said Félicia. “How has he kept his?”
“You must have some slight feeling for him, or you could not be so bitter. See, Félicia, I am his mother, and for his sake I lay aside my pride, and entreat you to forgive him. It is well that he should know how a woman regards such an insult as he offered you; but what will be the effect on him if his penitence brings him no pardon? You have a great opportunity before you now. He admires you, loves you, feels that he has misjudged you shamefully. If you return to him, you may exert such an influence over him as may change his whole character. I don’t mean that he will ever be a husband on whose strength you can lean, but if you choose to—to fascinate him, as you can fascinate any man if you will, you may be of the greatest service both to him and the kingdom——”
“Yes; it’s all right for Michael and the kingdom, but where do I come in?” cried Félicia shrilly. “I want to have a good time.”
“I think that is what you have always aimed at,” suggested Queen Ernestine, with unintentional irony, “and it has never yet——”
“Materialised,” supplied Félicia. “That is so, but I don’t expect now to find it in a little no-account State way back in the Balkans.”
“Perhaps if you don’t think so much about the good time it will be more likely to come to you. Think of your duty, instead, both as wife and as queen. Ah, Félicia, you can do so much for the kingdom. I tried, and failed. For the sake of the kingdom, I put aside my life’s happiness for thirteen years—and at the end of those years it seemed that I had lost it for ever. I don’t pretend that I made the sacrifice with a good grace—my husband could tell you quite the contrary—but at least I tried. You have none of my disadvantages. I was much younger than you are, and very soon made myself unpopular by listening to unwise advice, and I was foolishly jealous of the king’s wisest and most trusted adviser. You are beautiful, rich, fascinating, and you are not afraid of taking your own line. I think you have a shrewd adviser in Miss Logan. I know you have a faithful one in Baroness Radnika——”
“I guess you don’t know that Maimie and I don’t speak now,” interrupted Félicia. “We’ve quarrelled about this. She would like to have me accept Michael’s apology, and go right back.”
“And you have quarrelled with her? Oh, Félicia, she may have given you unwise advice at other times, but she is right now. I looked forward to your doing so much in Thracia in raising the condition of the women. They are so despised, so badly treated by the men—almost as badly as the Roumi women. And if the men take your doings as a sample of what is to be expected from civilised womanhood——”
“It will put back the clock in the Balkans a century at least?” suggested Félicia. “And to prevent that you’d have me take Michael back into favour?”
“No,” said the Queen, wincing slightly, “to prevent your both leading soured, loveless lives apart from each other, always in search of pleasure and never finding it. If Michael were not penitent, I would not ask you to return to him. But you will understand each other better, you will grow nearer to each other after this separation, will you not?”
“I guess Michael will understand me better, any way. But I don’t incline to go nearer to him than now—not much!”
“Félicia!” cried Queen Ernestine, in bitter disappointment, “is there nothing that will move you? Have you no regard for any one or anything?”
“That I have,—a real strong regard for one woman that no other person seems to think of at all. All of you come and talk to me about the kingdom, and Michael, and my own august relations, and political exigencies, and you yourself try to work upon my feelings for everything all round, but I myself count for just nothing. I have to watch out for my own interests, and I mean to do it. There isn’t one of you cares a cent for me——”
“Indeed we do, Félicia,” protested her mother-in-law feebly.
“As Michael’s recalcitrant wife, maybe—not for myself. But I have one adviser that’s shrewd enough, as you say, and she don’t care a cent for any of you—just for me alone, though I was awfully ugly to her last time we spoke, and if I listen to any one, it’ll be to her. Maime,” she raised her voice, “come right in. I didn’t feel like listening to you last time we talked, but now you may just state what you think. What good would it do me to go back to Michael?”
“Why, just this,” said Maimie promptly, advancing into the cabin, and speaking with entire disregard of Queen Ernestine and her feelings, “you’ve staked out your claim, and you’ve got to work it.”
“You had me do it,” objected Félicia.
“And if I did, I’ll help you see the thing through. It’s not what you expected, maybe, but it’s payable gold, and you won’t do better any other place.”
“Now that’s what I don’t see.”
“Well, just listen. Put it you act the way you want to, and go right back to the States. Michael will get a divorce, and you’ll have to stick over there, for you won’t be received at any Court in Europe.”
“Well, I guess America’s good enough for me,” but the tone was less resolute. Maimie seized upon the hint of wavering.
“Isthat so? How will you feel to go back to old times after what you’ve got accustomed to these days? Félicia Steinherz, you can’t do it. Just at present you’re a queen, whatever that’s worth, and I’d advise you stick to the position. Maybe you’ll choose to do all of the nice things you’ve been hearing about, maybe not, but any way, you’re much more likely to have a good time than if you take your separation.”
“Well,” said Félicia meditatively, “that is so. I’ll go back to Bellaviste right away.”
“Now? at once?” cried Queen Ernestine, bewildered by this sudden success. “But not quite so suddenly,” she pleaded, after a moment’s astonished pause. “It would excite remark, and deprive Michael of the pleasure he would feel in coming to welcome you. Come back with us to Drinitza, and let him meet you there.”
“I guess I will. I’d like to meet that little Helene of yours, too, and have her see what a happy couple Michael and I are.”
“Félicia, you will not go back to him in this spirit? What possible hope of future happiness can there be——?”
“Why, just this. Your son has had his lesson, and unless he’s a fool he won’t need any more. If he does, the Bluebird will be on hand yet.”
“I hoped you might be going to yield to his wishes in the matter of the yacht. It would be a very graceful concession, and he could not help being touched by it. It would show your confidence in him——”
“Confidence?” repeated Félicia. “I don’t confide in him worth a cent. You say he can’t trust me because I tricked Usk? Well, he helped me do it, so I can’t trust him. I shall continue to run the Bluebird myself, and I’ll have Mr Hicks get a relief crew ready for me when this one wants to go home. And after all, you can just take it from me that this will be the best thing for Michael too. He would trample on a woman that couldn’t defend herself, but one who’s as strong as he is he will respect. And I guess I’ll have him know that he can’t trample on me.”
A few weeks later, and the gathering at Drinitza had dispersed to the four winds of heaven. The Grand-Duke and Duchess had returned to Molzau, and Michael and Félicia to Bellaviste. Lord and Lady Caerleon were on their way to Pavelsburg, where they were to meet Prince Soudaroff (purely on a business footing) and arrange with him for the fulfilment of his sister-in-law’s dying wishes; and Usk and Helene, with their diminished retinue, were on board a leisurely, old-fashioned steamer, which was supposed to be likely to reach England before the end of the year. Cyril and his wife were at Trieste, whence they intended to sail for Syria, but before leaving they were to meet the Chevalier Goldberg, who had entreated them mysteriously not to sail before seeing something that he had to show them. They drove down to a wharf belonging to a private firm, at which a large steamer was loading, and here the Chevalier met them, joyful, alert, elated, almost inspired.
“Well, Chevalier, and where is this wonderful sight?” asked Cyril, looking round at the crates and boxes which were ready to be shipped. At present, what looked like a number of huge blocks of stone were being swung on board.
“Dis iss it,” was the proud reply, as the Chevalier waved his hand to include all the bustle around, “de crown off your worrk, Count—de consummation off de freeink off Issrael.”
“But what are all these things? and what are they for?”
“Dey are de stones off de Temple which iss to be built in de Holy City.”
“You are actually going to rebuild the Temple! Why, you never told me.”
“It wass a secret hope, not to be told efen to de Chentile det hed done so much for Zion. But de stones hef been preparink for a cheneration, maybe lonker. See, here are de great blocks off marble for buildink—all squared and dressed, so det dere may be no sound off iron on de sacred site. Dere iss only one small part off dem on board dis ship; oders will follow. In dese boxes and cases are many oder thinks—rare marble off many colours for de linink off de walls, carfed by de greatest artists, wonderful metal-work, mosaic off precious stones, holy fessels off golt and silfer, embroideries such ess queens and sultans might lonk for in fain. All dose det are wise-hearted hef gifen, men and women alike—de poor woman her silfer clasp, de rich woman her diamonts. De glory off dis letter House shell be greater den any since de first.”
“And you mean literally to revive the Temple ritual and everything connected with it?”
“Why not? We hef de priests, de sons off Aaron, we hef de secrifices in abundance, we hef de silfer and de golt, we hef at last de right to our own land. How could we dare delay, lest punishment come upon us for our sleckness?”
Cyril shook his head. “You are frightfully ill-advised,” he said. “A temple, with sacrifices and all the other accompaniments of ancient Jewish worship, in the very midst of the holy places of Christendom, will revolt the world. It will unite all your enemies against you, and give them a tremendous power for mischief.”
“How long hef we been refolted by de idols set up in de midst off our holy places? Let de Chentiles taste a little off de treatment dey hef gifen us. We are not afraid off what dey can do. We hef our rights guaranteed to us by de man raised up to help us. We are not dependent on de goodwill off Christendom.”
“You would find it safer to be dependent upon a number of powers than on one despot. Their mutual jealousies might hinder their uniting against you, but he has only himself to please.”
“Gif us only our guaranteed sefen years, and we shell be too stronk for any despot on earth to attack us.”
“Only seven years? I didn’t know your guarantee was limited. Well, if Malasorte leaves you undisturbed for the full seven years, he is not the man I think him.”
“Count! Count! after all your noble worrk for our great cause, are you become a prophet off efil against us?”
“Buona sorte, mala fede,” quoted Cyril. “Even supposing that Timoleon V. has the best will in the world towards you, he has to think of his other friends. The Vatican and the Jesuits have got nothing yet for their support, and you think it a good opportunity to outrage their tenderest susceptibilities and exhibit an alien religion, possessing immense wealth, established at Jerusalem!”
“But why should det signify to dem?”
“Need you ask? Well, my wife and sister-in-law would probably be able to tell you, from the study of prophecy, the exact year or day you may expect the explosion, but I, as a practical man, will merely say that I shall be very much surprised if you are still at Jerusalem when your seven years are over. The Pope may be established there, and your temple turned into a second St Peter’s, for all I can say.”
“Ah, we shell worrk wid de Orthodox against dem.”
“Don’t be too sure. Neustria and Scythia united against us three years ago, you know. The two Emperors are very friendly, and there is time for their respective Churches to become friendly too. Well, there will always be a welcome for you at Sitt Zeynab, Chevalier, if you are driven out.”
“Nefer! nefer! Wid all Issrael, I will die fightink in de Temple courts before Yerushalem shell fall again into de hends off de Chentiles. No, Count, we hef receifed our punishment, efen double, for all our sins. You hef lost your name. De Keptifity iss ofer for efer.”
He bowed them off the wharf, and returned to his self-imposed task of superintending the loading of the ship, as if opposition had made him only the more determined to go on with it. Cyril and his wife walked some way in silence, and when he spoke, it was not of the Chevalier or his scheme.
“When we left Sitt Zeynab, I little thought I should be glad to return to it,” he said at last.
“I know; you have always felt you were in exile there. But to me it is a haven of peace. I can’t feel that you are safe anywhere else.”
“Do you know, Ernestine, that when we left it last winter I was brimming over with ambition, though I didn’t say so to you? I had an idea that my old powers might return if I plunged suddenly into the midst of the old life.”
“Yes, I thought so when you were so determined to answer Michael’s appeal for your help in person.”
“And you never said so? Wise woman! Well, here I am returning meekly, quite shorn of my aspirations. Michael is safely married, but to the very last person we should have thought of for him then. Usk is married too, not at all to the girl who seemed obviously suitable. The Thracian finances are placed on a sound footing, but thanks far more to Félicia’s money than to any skill of mine. Scythia is out of Palestine, but Malasorte’s the friend, not Mortimer. And as for myself, instead of juggling with crowns, I am thankful to be rescued from a lunatic asylum. I not only did no good, but gave a great deal of trouble to other people. In future we will take our politics quietly, looking on at them from a distance.”
“And living happily among our own people, doing what we can for them. You think you can be happy, Cyril?”
“Don’t ask me to make rash declarations. At least I can say that, in view of ending my days at Sitt Zeynab, I am—content.”
THE END.
Sydney C. Grier was the pseudonym of Hilda Caroline Gregg.
This book is part of the author’s “Balkan Series.” The full series, in order, being:
An Uncrowned KingA Crowned QueenThe Kings of the EastThe Prince of the Captivity
An Uncrowned KingA Crowned QueenThe Kings of the EastThe Prince of the Captivity
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation corrections: quotation mark pairing.
Note: minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies (e.g.wofully/woefully, lifelong/life-long, newspaper-man/newspaper man, etc.) have been preserved.
[Chapter IV]
Change “caught up a long knife ... off of thepayment” topavement.
[Chapter VI]
[“This is terrible!”murmeredLady Caerleon.] tomurmured.
[Chapter XII]
“had met the Grand-Duchesssof Schwarzwald-Molzau” toDuchess.
[Chapter XVI]
“LordCaerlonalso produced a distinct impression” toCaerleon.
[Chapter XXI]
“Helene cried agrealdeal without feeling” togreat.
[End of Text]