“The little affair must be hushed up,” said Egon.
“It must be stopped, and at once,” said the Chancellor.
“Ach!” sighed the young man, with as much meaning in the long drawn breath, as the elder might care to read. And if it did not discourage, it at least irritated him. “Go on!” he exclaimed sharply. “Go on with your sorry tale.”
“After all, when one comes to the telling, there isn’t a very great deal one can put into cut-and-dried words,” explained Egon. “At table, the Emperor has his hostess on one side and his fair preserver on the other. The two talk as much together during meals as etiquette allows, and perhaps a little more. Then, asthe Emperor has been often at Lyndalberg, he can act as cicerone for a stranger. He has shown Miss Mowbray all the beauties of the place. He gathers her roses in the rose garden; he has guided her through the grottoes. He has piloted her through the labyrinth; he has told her which are the best dogs in the kennels; and has given her the history of all the horses in the Baron’s stables. I know this from the table talk. He has explored the lake with Miss Mowbray and her mother in a motor-boat; perhaps you saw the party? And whether or no he brought his automobile to Lyndalberg on purpose, in any case he’s had the Mowbrays out in it several times already. One would hardly think he could have found a chance to do so much in such a short time; but our Emperor is a man of action. Yesterday we had a picnic at the Seebachfall, to see Thorwaldsen’s Undine. Leopold and Miss Mowbray being splendid climbers, reached the statue on the height over the fall long before the rest of us. At starting, however, I was close behind with the Baroness, and overheard some joke between the two, about a mountain and a cow. The Emperor spoke of milking as a fine art, and said he’d lately been taking lessons. They laugheda great deal at this, and it was plain that they were on terms of comradeship. When a young man and a girl have a secret understanding—even the most innocent one—it puts them apart from others.
“Last night there were fireworks on the lake. The Emperor and Miss Mowbray watched them together, for everything was conducted most informally. Afterwards we had an impromptu cotillion, with three or four pretty new figures invented by the Baroness. The Emperor gave Miss Mowbray several favors, and one was a buckle of enameled forget-me-nots. This morning there was tennis. The Emperor and Miss Mowbray played together. They were both so skilful, it was a pleasure to watch them. At luncheon they each ate a double almond out of one shell, had a game over it, and Leopold caught Miss Mowbray napping. That brings us to the moment of my coming to you. For the afternoon, I fancy the Baroness was getting up a riding party; and this evening unless they’re too tired, she’ll perhaps get up an amateur concert at which Miss Mowbray will sing. The girl has a delicious voice.”
“The creature must be a fool, or an adventuress,” pronounced the Chancellor. “If she has kept hersenses she ought to know that nothing can come of this folly—except sorrow or scandal.”
Egon shrugged his stiffly padded, military shoulders. “I have always found that a woman in love doesn’t stop to count the cost.”
“So! You fancy her ‘in love’ with the Emperor.”
“With the man, rather than the Emperor, if I’m a judge of character.”
“Which you’re not!” Iron Heart brusquely disposed of that suggestion. “The merest school-girl could pull wool over your eyes, if she cared to take the trouble.”
“This one doesn’t care a rap. She hardly knows that I exist.”
“Humph!” The Chancellor’s eyes appraised his young brother’s features. “That’s a pity. You might have tried cutting the Emperor out. Her affair with him can have no happy ending; while you, in spite of all your faults, with your good looks, our position, and my money, wouldn’t be a bad match for an ambitious girl.”
“Your money?”
“I mean, should I choose to make you my heir,and I would choose, if you married to please me. Who are these Mowbrays?”
“I haven’t had the curiosity to inquire into their antecedents,” said Egon. “I only know that they’re ladies, that they must be of some consequence in their own country, or they couldn’t have got the letters of introduction they have; and that the girl is the prettiest on earth.”
“Mechtilde talked to me, I remember, a good deal about those letters of introduction,” the Chancellor reflected aloud. “But Rhaetia is a long cry from England; and letters might be forged. I’ve known such things to be done. Fetch me a big red volume you’ll find on the third shelf from the floor, at the left of the south window. You can’t miss it. It’s ‘Burke’s Peerage.’”
Egon rose with alacrity to obey. He was rather thoughtful, for his brother had put an entirely new and exciting idea into his head.
Presently the red volume was discovered and laid on the desk before the Chancellor, who turned the leaves over until he found the page desired. As his eye fell upon the long line of Mowbrays, his face changed and the bristling brows came together ina grizzled line. Apparently the women were not adventuresses, at least in the ordinary acceptation of the term.
There they were; his square-tipped finger pressed down upon the printed names with a dig that might have signified his disposition toward their representatives.
“The girl’s mother is the widow of Reginald, sixth Baron Mowbray,” the old man muttered half aloud. “Son, Reginald Edward, fifteen years of age. Daughter, Helen Augusta, twenty-eight. Aha! She’s no chicken, this young lady. She ought to be a woman of the world.”
“Twenty-eight!” replied Egon. “I’ll eat my hat if she’s twenty-eight.”
“Doesn’t she look it, by daylight?”
“Not an hour over nineteen. Might be younger. Jove, I was never so surprised to learn a woman’s age! By the by, I heard her telling Baron von Lyndal last night, apropos of our great Rhaetian victory, that she was eleven years old on the day it took place. That would make her about twenty now. When she spoke, I remember she gave a look at her mother, across the room, as though she were frightened.I suppose she was hoping there was no copy of this big red book at Lyndalberg.”
“That thought might have been in her mind,” assented the Chancellor, “or else she—” He left his sentence unfinished, and sat with unseeing eyes fixed in an owlish stare on the open page of Burke.
“I should like to know if you really meant what you said about my marriage a little while ago.” Egon ventured to attract his brother’s attention. “Because if you did—”
“If I did—”
“I might try very hard to please you in my choice of a wife.”
“Be a little more implicit. You mean, you would try to prove to Miss Mowbray that a Captain of Cavalry in the hand is worth an Emperor in the bush—a bramble-brush at that, eh?”
“Yes. I would do my best. And as you say, I’m not without advantages.”
“You are not. I was on the point of suggesting that you made the most of them in Miss Mowbray’s eyes—until you brought me this red book.”
The large forefinger tapped the page of Mowbrays, while two lines which might have meant amusement,or a sneer, scored themselves on either side the Chancellor’s mouth.
“And now—you’ve changed your mind?” There was disappointment in Egon’s voice.
“I don’t say that. I say only, ‘Wait.’ Make yourself as agreeable to the lady as you like. But don’t pledge yourself, and don’t count upon my promise or my money, until you hear again. By that time—well, we shall see what we shall see. Keep your hand in. But wait—wait.”
“How long am I to wait? If the thing’s to be done at all, it must be done soon, for meanwhile, the Emperor makes all the running.”
The Chancellor looked up again from the red book, his fist still covering the Mowbrays, as if they were to be extinguished. “You are to wait,” he said, “until I’ve had answers to a couple of telegrams I shall send to-night.”
The first and second dressing gongs had sounded at Schloss Lyndalberg on the evening of the day after Egon von Breitstein’s visit to his brother, and the Grand Duchess was beginning to wonder uneasily what kept her daughter, when ringed fingers tapped on the panel of the door.
“Come in!” she answered, and Virginia appeared, still in the white tennis dress she had worn that afternoon. She stood for an instant without speaking, her face so radiantly beautiful that her mother thought it seemed illumined from a light within.
It had been on the lips of the Grand Duchess to scold the girl for her tardiness, since to be late was an unpardonable offense, with an Imperial Majesty in the house. But in that radiance the words died.
“Virginia, what is it? You look—I scarcely knowhow you look. But you make me feel that something has happened.”
The Princess came slowly across the room, smiling softly, with an air of one who walks in sleep. Hardly conscious of what she did, she sank down in a big chair, and sat resting her elbows on her knees, her chin nestling between her two palms, like a pink-white rose in its calyx.
“You may go, Ernestine,” said the Grand Duchess to her maid. “I’ll ring when I want you again.”
The elaborate process of waving and dressing her still abundant hair had fortunately come to a successful end, and Ernestine had just caused a diamond star to rise above her forehead. She was in a robe de chambre, and the rest of her toilet could wait till curiosity was satisfied.
But Virginia still sat dreaming, her happy eyes far away. The Grand Duchess had to speak twice before the girl heard, and started a little. “My daughter—have you anything to tell me?”
The Princess roused herself. “Nothing, Mother, really. Except that I’m the happiest girl on earth.”
“Why—what has he said?”
“Not one word that any one mightn’t have listenedto. But I know now. He does care. And I think he will say something before we part.”
“There’s only one more day of his visit here, after to-night.”
“One whole long, beautiful day—together.”
“But after all, dearest,” argued her mother, “what do you expect? If in truth you were only Miss Mowbray, marriage between you and the Emperor would be out of the question. You’ve never gone into the subject of your feelings about this, quite thoroughly with me, and I do wish I knew precisely what you hope for from him; what you will consider the—the keystone of the situation?”
“Only for him to say that he loves me,” Virginia confessed. “If I’m right—if I’ve brought something new into his life, something which has shown him that his heart’s as important as his head, then there will come a moment when he can keep silence no longer—when he’ll be forced to say; ‘I love you, dear, and because we can’t belong to each other, day is turned into night for me.’ Then, when that moment comes, the tide of my fortune will be at its flood. I shall tell him that I love him too. And I shall tell himall the truth.”
“You’ll tell him who we really are?”
“Yes. And why I’ve been masquerading. That it was because, ever since I was a little girl, he’d been the one man in the world for me; because, when our marriage was suggested through official channels, I made up my mind that I must win him first through love, or live single all my days.”
“What if he should be vexed at the deception, and refuse to forgive you? You know, darling, we shall be in a rather curious position when everything comes out, as we have made all our friends here under the name of Mowbray. Of course, the excuse for what we did is, that our real position is a hundred times higher than the one we assumed, and all those to whom we’ve been introduced would be delighted to know us in our own characters, at the end. But Leopold is a man, not a romantic girl, as you are. He has always had a reputation for pride and austerity, for being just before he would let himself be generous; and it may be that to one of his nature, a wild whim like yours—”
“You think of him as he was before we met, not as he is now, if you fancy he could be hard with a woman he really loved,” said Virginia, eagerly. “He’llforgive me, dear. I’ve no fear of him any more. To-night, I’ve no fear of anything. He loves me—and—I’m Empress of the world.”
“Many women would be satisfied with Rhaetia,” was the practical response which jumped into the mind of the Grand Duchess; but she would throw no more cold water upon the rose-flame of her daughter’s exaltation. She kissed the girl on the forehead, breathing a few words of motherly sympathy; but when the Princess had flown off to her own room to dress, she shook her diamond-starred head doubtfully.
Virginia’s plan sounded poetical, and as easy to carry out as to turn a kaleidoscope and form a charming new combination of color; or so it had seemed while the young voice pleaded. But, when the happy face and radiant eyes no longer illumined the path, the way ahead seemed dark.
To be sure the Princess had so far walked triumphantly along the high-road to success, but it was not always a good beginning which led to a good end; and the Grand Duchess felt, as she rang for Ernestine, that her nerves would be strained to breaking point until matters were definitely settled, for better or for worse.
Virginia had never been lovelier than she was that night at dinner, and Egon von Breitstein’s admiration for her beauty had in it a fascinating new ingredient. Until yesterday, he had said to himself, “If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?” But now, there was a vague idea that she might after all be for him, and he took enormous pleasure in the thought that he was falling in love with a girl who had captured the Emperor’s heart.
Egon glanced very often at Leopold, contrasting his sovereign’s appearance unfavorably with his own. The Emperor was thin and dark, with a grave cast of feature, while Egon’s face kept the color and youthfulness of the early twenties. He was older than Leopold, but he looked a boy. Alma Tadema would have wreathed him with vine leaves, draped him with tiger skins, and set him down on a marble bench against a burning sapphire sky, where he would have appeared more suitably clad than in the stiff blue and silver uniform of a crack Rhaetian regiment.
Leopold, on the contrary, would never be painted except as a soldier; and it seemed to Egon that no normal girl could help thinking him a far handsomer fellow than the Emperor. For the moment, of course,Miss Mowbray did not notice him, because his Imperial Majesty loomed large in the foreground of her imagination; but the Chancellor had evidently a plan in his head for removing that stately obstacle into the dim perspective.
Egon had not heard Miss Mowbray spoken of as an heiress, therefore, even had there been no Emperor in the way, he would not have worshiped at the shrine. But now, behold the shrine, attractive before, newly and alluringly decked! Egon wondered much over his half-brother’s apparently impulsive offer, and the contradictory command, which had, a little later, enjoined waiting.
He was delighted, however, that he had not been forbidden to make himself agreeable; and his idea was, as soon as dinner should be over, to find a place at Miss Mowbray’s side before any other man should have time to take it. But unluckily for this plan, Baron von Lyndal detained him for a few moments with praise of a new remedy which might cure the Chancellor’s gout; and when he escaped from his host to look for Miss Mowbray in the white drawing-room she was not there.
From the music room adjoining, however, camesounds which drew him toward the door. He knew Miss Mowbray’s soft, coaxing touch on the piano: she was there, “playing in a whisper,” as he had heard her call it. Perhaps she was going to sing, as she had once or twice before, and would need some one to turn the pages of her music. Egon thought that he would much like to be the some one, and was in the act of parting the white velvet portières that covered the doorway, when his hostess smilingly beckoned him away.
“The Emperor has just asked Miss Mowbray to teach him some old-fashioned Scotch or English air (I’m afraid I don’t quite know the difference!) called ‘Annie Laurie,’” the Baroness explained. “He was charmed with it when she sang the other evening, and I’ve been assuring him that the song would exactly suit his voice. We mustn’t disturb them while the lesson is going on. Tell me—I’ve hardly had a moment to ask you—how did you find the Chancellor?”
Chained to a forced allegiance, Egon mechanically answered the questions of the Baroness without making absurd mistakes, the while his ears burned to hear what was going on behind the white curtain.
Everybody knew of the music lesson, now, and chatted in tones of tactful monotony, never speaking too loudly to disturb the singers, never too cautiously, lest they should seem to listen. Once, and then again, the creamymezzo sopranoand the rich tenor that was almost a baritone, sang conscientiously through the verses of “Annie Laurie” from beginning to end; then a few desultory chords were struck on the piano; and at last there was silence behind the white curtains, in the music room.
Were the two still there? To interrupt such a tête-a-tête seemed out of the question, but not to know what was happening Egon found too hard to bear, and the arrival of a telegram for Lady Mowbray came as opportunely as if Providence had had his special needs in mind.
Evidently it was not a pleasant telegram, for, as she read it, the Dresden china lady showed plainly that she was disconcerted. Her pretty face lost its color; her eyes dilated as if she had tasted a drop of belladonna on sugar; she patted her lips with her lace handkerchief, and finally rose from her chair, looking dazed and distressed.
“I’ve had rather bad news,” she admitted to Baronessvon Lyndal, who was all solicitude. “Oh, nothing really serious, I trust, but still, disquieting. It is from a dear friend. I think I had better go to my room, and talk things over with Helen. Would you be kind enough to tell her when she comes in that she’s to follow me there? Don’t send for her till then; it’s not necessary. But I shall want her by and by.”
It was clear that Lady Mowbray did not wish her daughter to be disturbed. Still, Egon von Breitstein thought he might fairly let his anxiety run away with him. As the Baroness accompanied her guest to the door, he took it upon himself to search for Miss Mowbray, for now, if the Emperor should curse him for a spoil-sport, he would have the best of excuses. Lady Mowbray was in need of her daughter.
He lifted the white curtain and peeped through a small ante-chamber into the music room beyond. It was empty; but one of the long windows leading into the rose garden was wide open.
The month of September was dying, and away in the Rhaetian mountains winter had begun; yet in the lap of the low country summer lingered. The air was soft, and sweet with the perfume of roses, roses living, and roses dead in a potpourri of scattered petals onthe grass. It was a garden for lovers, and a night for lovers.
Egon went to the open window and looked out, but dared not let his feet take the direction of his eyes, though he was sure that somewhere in the garden Miss Mowbray and the Emperor were to be found.
“They will come in again this way,” he said to himself, “for they will want people to think they have never left the music room; and for that very reason they won’t stop too long. They must have some regard for the conventions. If I wait—”
He did not finish the sentence in his mind; nevertheless he examined the resources of the window niche with a critical eye.
There was a deep enclosure between the window frame and the long, straight curtains of olive green satin which matched the decoration of the music room. By drawing the curtains a few inches further forward, one could make a screen which would hide one from observation by any person in the room, or outside, in the garden. So Egon did draw the curtain, and framed in his shelter like a saint in a niche, he stood peering into the silver night.
The moon was rising over the lake, and long, pale rays of level light were stealing up the paths, like the fingers of a blind child that caress gropingly the features of a beloved face.
Egon could not see the whole garden, or all the paths among the roses; but if the Emperor and his companion came back by the way they had gone, he would know presently whether they walked in the attitude of friends or lovers. It was so necessary for his plans to know this, that he thought it worth while to exercise a little patience in waiting. Of course, if they were lovers, good-by to his hopes; and he would never have so good a chance as this to make sure.
All things in the garden that were not white were gray as a dove’s wings. Even the shadows were not black. And the sky was gray, with the soft gray of velvet, under a crust of diamonds which flashed as the spangles on a woman’s fan flash, when it trembles in her hand.
White moths, happily ignorant that summer would come no more for them, drifted out from the shadows like rose petals blown by the soft wind. On a trellis, a crowding sisterhood of pale roses drooped theirheads downwardin memento mori. It was a silver night; a night of enchantment.
Leopold had meant to take Virginia out only to see the moon rise over the water, turning the great smooth sheet of jet into a silver shield; for there had been clouds or spurts of rain on other nights, and he had said to himself that never again, perhaps, would they two stand together under the white spell of the moon. He had meant to keep her for five minutes, or ten at the most, and then to bring her back; but they had walked down to the path which girdled the cliff above the lake. The moon touched her golden hair and her pure face like a benediction. He dared not look at her thus for long, and when there came a sudden quick rustling in the grass at their feet, he bent down, glad of any change in the current of his thoughts.
Some tiny, winged thing of the night sought a lodging in a bell-shaped flower whose blue color the moon had drunk, and as Leopold stooped, the same impulse made Virginia bend.
He stretched out his hand to gather the low-growing branch of blossoms, which he would give the girl as a souvenir of this hour, and their fingers met. Lakeand garden swam before the eyes of the Princess as the Emperor’s hand closed over hers.
Her great moment had come; yet now that it was here, womanlike she wished it away—not gone forever, oh no, but waiting just round the corner of the future.
“The flowers are yours—I give them to you,” she laughed, as if she fancied it was in eagerness to grasp the disputed spray that he had pressed her fingers.
“You are the one flower I want—flower of all the world,” he answered, in a choked voice, speaking words he had not meant to speak; but the ice barriers that held back the torrent of which he had told her, had melted long ago and now had been swept away. Other barriers which he had built up in their place—his convictions, his duty as a man at the head of a nation—were gone too. “I love you,” he stammered, “I love you far better than my life, which you saved. I’ve loved you ever since our first hour together on the mountain, but every day my love has grown a thousand fold, until now it’s greater and higher than any mountain. I can fight against myself no longer. I thought I was strong, but this love is stronger than I am. Say that you care for me—only say that.”
“I do care,” Virginia whispered. She had prayed for this, lived for this, and she was drowning in happiness. Yet she had pictured a different scene, a scene of storm and stress. She had heard in fancy broken words of sorrow and noble renunciation on his lips, and in anticipating his suffering she had felt the joy her revelation would give. “I care—so much, so much! How hard it will be to part.”
“If you care, then we shall not be parted,” said Leopold.
The Princess looked up at him in wonder, holding back as he would have caught her in his arms. What could he mean? What plan was in his mind that, believing her to be Helen Mowbray, yet made it possible for him to reassure her so?
“I don’t understand,” she faltered. “You are the Emperor, and I am no more than—”
“You are my wife, if you love me.”
In the shock of her ecstatic surprise she was helpless to resist him longer, and he held her close and passionately, his lips on her hair, her face crushed against his heart. She could hear it beating, feel it throb under her cheek. His wife? Then he loved her enough for that. Yet how was it possible for him tostand ready, for her sake, to override the laws of his own land?
“My darling—my wife!” he said again. “To think that you love me.”
“I have loved you from the first,” the Princess confessed, “but I was afraid you would feel, even if you cared, that we must say good-by. Now—” And in an instant the whole truth would have been out; but the word “good-by” stabbed him, and he could not let it pass.
“We shall not say good-by, not for an hour,” he cried. “After this I could not lose you. There’s nothing to prevent my being your husband, you my wife. Would to God you were of Royal blood, and you should be my Empress—the fairest Empress that poet or historian ever saw—but we’re prisoners of Fate, you and I. We must take the goods the gods provide. My goddess you will always be, but the Empress of Rhaetia, even my love isn’t powerful enough to make you. If I am to you only half what you are to me, you’ll be satisfied with the empire of my heart.”
Suddenly the warm blood in Virginia’s veins grew chill. It was as if a wind had blown up from the dark depths of the lake, to strike like ice into her soul. Aninstant more and he would have known that she was a Princess of the Blood, and through his whole life she could have gone on worshiping him because he had been ready to break down all barriers for her love, before he guessed there need be none to break. Now her warm impulse of gratitude was frozen by the biting blast of disillusionment; but still there was hope left. It might be that she misunderstood him. She would not judge him yet.
“The empire of your heart,” she echoed. “If that were mine I should be richer than with all the treasures of the earth. If you were Leo, the chamois hunter, I would love you as I love you now, because in yourself you are the one man for me; and I’d go with you to the end of the world, as your wife. But you’re not the chamois hunter; you are the man I love, yet you are the Emperor. Being the Emperor, had you talked of a hopeless love and a promise not to forget, having nothing else to give me, because of your high destiny and my humbler one, I could still have been happy. Yet you speak of more than that. You speak of something I can’t understand. It seems to me that what a Royal man offers the woman he loves should be all or nothing.”
“I do offer you all,” said Leopold. “All myself, my life, the heart and soul of me—all that’s my own to give. The rest—belongs to Rhaetia.”
“Then what do you mean by—”
“Don’t you understand, my sweet, that I’ve asked you to be my wife? What can a man ask more of a woman?”
“Your wife—but not the Empress. How can the two be apart?”
He tried to take her once more in his arms, but when he saw that she would not have it so, he held his love in check, and waited. He was sure that he would not need to wait long, for not only had he laid his love at her feet, but had pledged himself to a tremendous sacrifice on love’s altar.
The step which in a moment of passion he had now resolved to take would create dissension among his people, alienate one who had been his second father, rouse England, America and Germany to anger, because of the Princess whose name rumor had already coupled with his, and raise in every direction a storm of disapproval. When this girl whom he loved realized the immensity of the concession he was making because of his reverent love forher, she would give her life to him, now and forever.
Tenderly he took her hand and lifted it to his lips; then, when she did not draw it away (because he was to have his chance of explanation) he held it between both his own, as he talked on.
“Dearest one,” he said, “when I first knew I loved you—loved you as I didn’t dream I could love a woman—for your sake and my own, I would have avoided meeting you too often. This I tell you frankly. I didn’t see how, in honor, such a love could end except in despair for me, and sorrow even for you, if you should come to care. Had you and Lady Mowbray stayed on at the hotel in Kronburg, I think I could have held to my resolve. But when Baroness von Lyndal suggested your coming here, my heart leaped up. I said in my mind, ‘At least I shall have the joy of seeing her every day, for a time, without doing anything to darken her future. Afterwards, when she has gone out of my life, I shall have that radiance to remember. And so no harm will be done in the end, except that I shall have to pay, by suffering.’ Still, I had no thought of the future without a parting; I felt that inevitable. And the suffering camehand in hand with the joy, for not a night here at Lyndalberg have I slept. If I had been weak, I should have groaned aloud in the agony of renunciation.
“My rooms open on a lawn. More than once I’ve come out into the darkness, when all the household was sleeping. Some times I have walked to this very spot where you and I stand now—heart to heart for the first time, my darling—asking myself whether there were any way out of the labyrinth. It was not until I brought you here and saw you by my side with the moon rays for a crown, that a flash of blinding light seemed to pierce the clouds. Suddenly I saw all things clearly, and though there will be difficulties, I count them as overcome.”
“Still you haven’t answered my question,” said Virginia in a low, strained voice.
“I’m coming to that now. It was best that you should know first all that’s been troubling my heart and brain during these few, bitter-sweet days which have taught me so much. You know, men who have their place at the head of great nations can’t think first of themselves, or even of those they love better than themselves. If they hope to snatch at personalhappiness, they must take the one way open to them, and be thankful.
“Don’t do me the horrible injustice to believe that I wouldn’t be proud to show you to my subjects as their Empress; but instead, I can offer only what men of Royal blood for hundreds of years have offered to women whom they honored as well as loved. You must have heard even in England of what is called a morganatic marriage? It is that I offer you.”
With a cry of pain—the cruel pain of wounded, disappointed love—the Princess tore her hand from his.
“Never!” she exclaimed. “It’s an insult.”
“An insult? No, a thousand times no. I see that even now you don’t understand.”
“I think that I understand very well, too well,” said Virginia, brokenly. The beautiful fairy palace of happiness that she had watched as it grew, lay shattered, destroyed in the moment which ought to have seen its triumphant completion.
“Never!” she exclaimed. “It’s an insult“Never!”she exclaimed.“It’s an insult”
“I tell you that you cannot understand, or you wouldn’t say—you wouldn’t dare to say, my love—that I’d insulted you. Don’t you see, don’t you know,that you would be my wife in the sight of all men, as well as in the sight of God.”
“Your wife, you call it!” the Princess gave a harsh little laugh which hurt as tears could not hurt. “You seem to have strange ideas of that word, which has always been sacred to me. A morganatic marriage! That is a mere pretense, an hypocrisy. I would be ‘your wife,’ you say. I would give you all my love, all my life. You, in return, would give me—your left hand. And you know well that, in a country which tolerates such a one-sided travesty of marriage, the laws would hold you free to marry another woman—a Royal woman, whom you could make an Empress—as free as if I had no existence.”
“Great Heaven, that you should speak so!” he broke out. “What if the law did hold me free? Can you dream—do you put me so low as to dream that my heart would hold me free? My soul would be bound to you forever.”
“So you may believe, now. But the knowledge that you could change would be death to me—a death to die daily. Yes, I tell you again, it was an insult to offer a lot so miserable, so contemptible, to a woman you profess to love. How could you do it? If only youhad never spoken the hateful words! If only you had left me the ideal I had of you—noble, glorious, above the whole world of men. But after all you are selfish,—cruel. If you had said ‘I love you, yet we must part, for Duty stands between us.’ I could—but no, I can never tell you now what I could have answered if you had said that, instead of breaking my heart.”
Under the fire of her reproach he stood still, his lips tight, his shoulders braced, as if he held his breast open for the knife.
“By Heaven, it is you who are cruel,” he said at last. “How can I make you see your injustice?”
“In no way. There’s nothing more to be said between us two after this, except—good-by.”
“It shall not be good-by.”
“It must. I wish it.”
He had caught her dress as she turned to go, but now he released her. “You wish it? It’s not true that you love me, then?”
“It was true. Everything—everything in my whole life—is changed from this hour. It would be better if I’d never seen you. Good-by.”
She ran from him, along the moonlit path. One step he took as if to follow and keep her, but checked himself and let her go. Only his eyes went with her, and in them there was more of pain than anger, though never before in all his life, perhaps, had he been thwarted in any strong desire. Passion urged him forward, but pride held him back; for Leopold was a proud man, and to have his love thrown in his face, was to receive an icy douche with the blood at fever heat.
For this girl’s sake he had in a few days changed the habits of a lifetime. Pride, reserve, self-control, the wish not only to appear, but to be a man, above the frailties of common men, the ambition to be placed, and worthily placed, on a pedestal by his subjects; all these he had thrown away for Helen Mowbray.
He was too just a man not to admit that, if one of his Royal cousins of younger branches, had contemplated such folly as this, he would have done his best to nip that folly while it was in bud. “He jests at scars who never felt a wound”; and until Leopold had learned by his own unlooked-for experience what love can mean, what men will do for love while the sweet madness is on them, he would have been utterly unable to understand the state of mind.
A cousin inclined to act as he was now bent on acting, would but a month ago have found all the Emperor’s influence, even force perhaps, brought to bear in restraining him. Leopold saw the change in himself, was startled and shamed by it; nevertheless he would have persevered, trampling down every obstacle that rose in his way, if only the girl had seen things with his eyes.
She had accused him of insulting her, not stopping to consider that, even to make her morganatically his wife, he must give great cause for complaint not only to his ministers but to his people. For he was expected to marry a girl of Royal blood, that the country might have an heir. If Helen Mowbray had accepted theposition he offered her, he could never have broken her heart by making another marriage.
Not only would it be difficult in these days to find a Princess willing to tolerate such a rival, but it would have been impossible for him to desecrate the bond between himself and the one adored woman.
This being the case, with Helen Mowbray as his morganatic wife, there could be no direct heir to the throne. At his death, the son of his uncle, the Archduke Joseph, would succeed; and during his life the popularity which was dear to him would be hopelessly forfeited. Rhaetia would never forgive him for selfishly preferring his own private happiness to the good of the nation.
He could fancy how old Iron Heart von Breitstein would present this point of view to him, with fierce eloquence, temples throbbing like the ticking of a watch, eyes netted with bloodshot veins. But on the other hand he could picture himself standing calmly to face the storm, steadfast in his own indomitable will, happy with love to uphold him.
But now, the will which had borne him through life in a triumphal march, had been powerless against that of this young girl. She would have none of him.A woman whose face was her fortune, whose place in life was hardly as high as the first step of a throne, had refused—an Emperor.
Hardly could Leopold believe the thing that had happened to him. He had spoken of doubting that he had won her love; and he had doubted. But he had allowed himself to hope, because he had confidence in his Star, and because, perhaps, it had scarcely been known in the annals of history that an Emperor’s suit should be repulsed.
Besides, he had loved the girl so passionately, that it seemed she could not remain cold. And he hoped still that, when she had passed a long night in reflection, in thinking over the situation, perhaps taking counsel with that comparatively commonplace yet practical little lady, her mother, she might be ready to change her mind.
For the first few moments after the stinging rebuff he had endured, Leopold felt that, if she did, it would be her turn to suffer, for he could never humble himself to implore for the second time. But, as he stood in the soft stillness of the night, gazing towards the lights of the house, thoughts of Virginia—her youth, her sweetness, her beauty dimmed with grief,—overwhelmedhim. Could he have reached her, he would have fallen on his knees, and kissed her gown.
By and by a vast tenderness breathed its calm over the thwarted passion in his breast, and plans to win her back came whispering in his ear. He would write a letter and send it to her room. But no; perhaps it would be wise to give her a longer interval for reflection and—it might be—regret. To-morrow he would see her and show all the depths of that great love which she had thought to throw away. She could not go on withstanding him forever; and now that he had burned his boats behind him, he would never think of turning back. He would persevere till she should yield.
Meanwhile Virginia had hurried blindly toward the house, and it was instinct rather than intention that led her to the open window of the music room, by which she had come out.
Tears burned her eyelids, but they did not fall until she stood once more in the room where she and Leopold had been happy together. There she had sat at the piano, and he had bent over her, love in his eyes—honest love, she had thought, her heart full of thanksgiving. How little she had guessed then thehumiliation in store for her, and the end of all her hopes! How could she bear her pain, and how could she go on living out her life?
She paused in the window niche, looking into the room through a mist of tears, and a sob choked her. “Cruel—cruel,” she whispered. “What agony—what an insult!”
Then, dashing away her tears, she pushed back the dark curtain, and would have passed on into the room, had not the quick gesture brought her arm into contact with the buttons and gold braid on a man’s breast.
Instantly she realized that some one was hiding there—some one dressed in a military coat; and her first impulse was for flight—anything to escape, unrecognized. But on second thoughts she changed her mind.
Whoever it was had in all probability hidden himself for the purpose of spying, and was already aware that Miss Mowbray had rushed into the house weeping, after a tête-a-tête with the Emperor in the garden. Perhaps he had even caught a word or two of her sobbing ejaculation. No, she must not run away, and leave the outcome of this affair to chance. She mustsee with whom she had to deal, that she might know what was best to do.
She had taken a step into the room, but quick as light she turned, pulled away the screen of curtain and faced Captain von Breitstein.
It was a trying moment for him, and the girl’s look stripped him of all his light audacity. She had come to the window by a different path from the one he had watched, therefore she had taken him unawares, before he had time to escape, as he had planned. He was caught fairly, and must save himself as best he could without preparation.
If her reproach forestalled his excuse, he was lost. He must step into the breach at whatever risk. No time to weigh words; he must let loose the first that sprang to his lips.
“I see what you think of me,” he said. “I see you think I was watching you. I swear I wasn’t, though I knew you were in the garden with—the Emperor. Wait—you must listen. You must hear my justification. I was sent to this room to fetch you. For your sake, how could I go back and say you had disappeared—together? I looked out into the garden and saw you—with him. I saw from your mannerthat—he had made you suffer. I was half mad with rage, guessing—guessing something which one word you let drop as you came in, told me had happened. He is my sovereign, but—he has insulted you. Let me be your knight, as in days of old. Let me defend you, for I love you. I waited here to tell you this, as you came, so that, if you would, we might announce an engagement—”
If Virginia’s eyes had been daggers, he would have fallen at her feet, pierced to the heart. For one long second she looked at him without speaking, her face eloquent. Then she went by him with the proud bearing of a queen.
Egon was stricken dumb. Dully he watched her move across the room to a door which led into a corridor. He heard the whisper of her satin dress, and saw the changing lights and shadows on its creamy folds, under the crystal chandeliers; he saw the white reflection, like a spirit, mirrored deep under the polished surface of the floor.
Never had she been more beautiful; but she was beautiful in his eyes no longer. He had hurt her pride; but she had stabbed his vanity; and to wound Egon von Breitstein’s vanity was to strike at his life. Hehated the girl, hated her so sharply that his nerves ached with the intensity of his hatred; and the only relief he could have would be through reprisal.
He had not been able to deceive her. She knew that he had been spying, and it was fortunate for his future, he realized already, that she had broken with the Emperor. He must do all he could, and do it quickly, to prevent a reconciliation, lest she should work him injury.
As for his hastily stammered proposal, it was a good thing that the girl had not taken him at his word, for the Chancellor had not given him permission to speak, and if she had accepted him, he might have had to wriggle out of his engagement. Still, he could not forgive her scorn of him.
“Lorenz shall help me to pay her for this!” he said furiously to himself, too angry to mourn over lost hopes, lost opportunities. “He will know how to punish her. And between us she shall suffer.”
It was for refuge that the Princess fled to her own room.
A boudoir shared by the Grand Duchess adjoined it, and entering there, to her dismay the girl saw her mother lying on a sofa, attended by Ernestine, the French maid.
Virginia’s heart sank. She had supposed the Grand Duchess to be in the white drawing-room with the Baroness, and the other guests of the house. Now there was no hope that she might be left alone and unquestioned. And the girl had longed to be alone.
“At last!” exclaimed a faint voice from the sofa. “I thought you would never come.”
The Princess stared, half-dazed, unable yet to tear her mind from her private griefs. “Are you ill, Mother?” she stammered. “Had you sent for me?”
“I came very near fainting in the drawing-room,”the Grand Duchess answered. “Ernestine, you may leave us now.”
The French woman went out noiselessly.
Still Virginia did not speak. Could it be that there had been another spy, beside Egon von Breitstein, and that her mother already knew how the castle of cards had fallen? Was it the news of defeat which had prostrated her?
“Have you—did any one tell you?” the girl faltered.
“I’ve had a telegram—a horrible telegram. Oh, Virginia, I am not young, as you are. I am too old to endure all this. I think you should not have subjected me to it.”
The Grand Duchess’s voice was plaintive, and pried among the girl’s sick nerves, like hot wire.
“What do you mean, dear? I don’t understand,” she said, dully. “I’m so sorry you are ill. If it’s my fault in any way, I—”
Her mother pointed toward a writing table. “The telegram is there,” she murmured. “It is too distressing—too humiliating.”
Virginia picked up a crumpled telegraph form and began to read the message, which was dated Londonand written in English. “Some one making inquiries here about the Mowbrays. Beg to advise you to explain all at once, or leave Kronburg, to avoid almost certain complications. Lambert.”
Lady Lambert was the wife of the ex-Ambassador to the Court of Rhaetia from Great Britain.
The Princess finished in silence.
“Isn’t it hideous?” asked the Grand Duchess. “To think that you and I should have deliberately placed ourselves in such a position! We are to run away, like detected adventuresses, unless—unless you are now ready to tell the Emperor all.”
“No,” said Virginia, hopelessly.
“What! Not yet? Oh, my dear, then you must bring matters to a crisis—instantly—to-night even. It’s evident that some enemy—perhaps some jealous person—has been at work behind our backs. It is for you to turn the tables upon him, and there isn’t an hour to waste. From the first, you meant to make some dramatic revelation. Now, the time has come.”
“Ah, I meant—I meant!” echoed Virginia, with a sob breaking the ice in her voice. “Nothing has turned out as I meant. You were right, dear; I was wrong. We ought never to have come to Rhaetia.”
The Grand Duchess grew paler than before. She had been vaguely distressed. Now, she was sharply alarmed. If Virginia admitted that this great adventure should never have been undertaken, then indeed the earth must be quaking under their feet.
“Ought not—to have come?” she repeated, piteously. “What dreadful thing has happened?”
The Princess stood with bent head. “It’s hard to tell,” she said, “harder, almost, than anything I ever had to do. But it must be done. Everything’s at an end, dear.”
“What—you’ve told him, and he has refused to forgive?”
“He knows nothing.”
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t keep me in suspense.”
Virginia’s lips were dry. “He asked me to be his wife,” she said. “Oh, wait—wait! Don’t look happy. You don’t understand, and I didn’t, at first. He had to explain and—he put the thing as little offensively as he could. Oh, Mother, he thinks me only good enough to be his morganatic wife!”
The storm had burst at last, and the Princess fell on her knees by the sofa where, burying her face inher mother’s lap, she sobbed as if parting with her youth.
There had always been mental and temperamental barriers between the Dresden china lady and her daughter; but they loved each other, and never had the girl been so dear to her mother as now. The Grand Duchess thought of the summer day when Virginia had knelt beside her, saying, “We are going to have an adventure, you and I.”
Alas, the adventure was over, and summer and hope were dead. Tears trembled in the mother’s eyes. Poor little Virginia, so young, so inexperienced, and, in spite of her self-will and recklessness, so sweet and loving withal!
“But, dear, but, you are making the worst of things,” the Grand Duchess said soothingly, her hand on the girl’s bright hair. “Why, instead of crying you ought to be smiling, I think. Leopold must love you desperately, or he would never have proposed marriage—even morganatic marriage. Just at first, the idea must have shocked you—knowing who you are. But remember, if you were Miss Mowbray, it would have been a triumph. Many women of high position have married Royalty morganatically, andevery one has respected them. You seem to forget that the Emperor knows you only as Helen Mowbray.”
“He ought to have known that Helen Mowbray was not the girl to consent—no, not more easily than Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe. He should have understood without telling, that to a girl with Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins such an offer would be like a blow over the heart.”
“How should he understand? He is Rhaetian. His point of view—”
“His point of view to me is terrible. Oh, Mother, it’s useless to argue. Everything is spoiled. Of course if he knew I was Princess Virginia, he would be sorry for what he had proposed, even if he thought I’d brought it on myself. But then, it would be too late. Don’t you understand, I valued his love because it was given tome, not the Princess? If he said, ‘Now I know you, I can offer my right hand instead of my left, to you as my wife,’ that would not be the same thing at all. No, there’s nothing left but to go home; and the Emperor of Rhaetia must be told that Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe has decided not to marry. That will be our one revenge—but a pitiful one, since he’ll never know that the Princess whorefuses his right hand and the Helen Mowbray who wouldn’t take his left, are one and the same. Oh Mother, I did love him so! Let us get out of this hateful house as soon as we can.”
The Grand Duchess knew her daughter, and abandoned hope. “Yes, if you will not forgive him; we must go at once, and save our dignity if we can,” she said. “The telegram will give us our excuse. I told the Baroness I had received bad news, and she asked permission to knock at my door before going to bed, and inquire how I was feeling. She may come at any moment. We must say that the telegram recalls us immediately to England.”
“Listen!” whispered Virginia. “I think there’s some one at the door now.”
Baroness von Lyndal stood aghast on hearing that she was to be deserted early in the morning by the bright, particular star of her house party—after the Emperor. She begged that Lady Mowbray would reconsider; that she would wire to England, instead of going, or at all events that she would wait for one day more, until Leopold’s visit to Schloss Lyndalberg should be over.
In her anxiety, she even failed in tact, when shefound arguments useless. “But the Emperor?” she objected. “If you go off early in the morning, before he or any one comes down, what will he think, what will he say at being cheated out of hisau revoir?”
The Grand Duchess hesitated; but Virginia answered firmly “I said good-by to him to-night. The Emperor—will understand.”
Breakfast at Schloss Lyndalberg was an informal meal, under the reign of Mechtilde. Those who were sociably inclined, appeared. Those who loved not their species until the day was older, ate in their rooms.
Leopold had shown himself at the table each morning, however, and set the fashion. And the day after the parting in the garden, he was earlier even than usual. It was easy to be early, as he had not been to bed that night; but he had an extra incentive. He could scarcely wait to see how Helen Mowbray would meet him; whether she would still be cold, or whether sound advice from her mother would have made her kind.
This was his last day at Lyndalberg. By his special request no program of entertainment had been arranged; and before coming down to breakfastLeopold had been turning over in his mind plan after plan for another chance of meeting the girl alone. He had even written a letter, but had torn it up, because he was unable to say on paper what was really in his heart.
Breakfast passed, however, and when she did not appear, Leopold grew restless. He did not ask for her before the others; but when he and the Baroness had strolled out together on the terrace, where white peacocks spread their jeweled tails, the Emperor sought some opportunity of bringing in the name that filled his thoughts.
“I see the red October lilies are opening,” he said. “Miss Mowbray will be interested. She tells me there’s nothing like them in England.”
“Ah, she has gone just too soon!” sighed the Baroness.
The Emperor glanced quickly from the mass of crimson flowers, to his hostess’s face. “Gone?” he repeated.
“Yes,” the Baroness answered. “They must have reached Kronburg before this. You know, they left their companion there. Perhaps your Majesty did not realize that they were leaving here quite so early?”
He turned so white under the brown tan the mountains had given, that the Baroness was alarmed. She had taken Virginia’s words as Virginia had meant her to take them, and therefore supposed that a formal farewell of some sort had been spoken. This impression did not prevent her from guessing that there must have been a misunderstanding, and she was tingling with a lively curiosity which she was obliged carefully to hide.
The romance which had been enacted under her eyes she believed to be largely of her own making; and, not being a bad-hearted woman, she had grown fond of Virginia. She had even had pangs of conscience; and though she could not see the way for a happy ending to the pretty drama, it distressed her that the curtain should go down on sadness.
“I did not know they were going at all,” Leopold answered frankly, willing to sacrifice his pride for the sake of coming quickly at the truth.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Baroness. “I am distressed! Miss Mowbray distinctly said, when I begged that they would wait, ‘the Emperor will understand.’”
“I do understand—now I know they have gone,” he admitted. “But—Miss Mowbray thinks she hassome cause of complaint against me, and she’s mistaken. I can’t let such a mistake go uncorrected. You say they must be at Kronburg before this. Are they staying on there?”
“I’m afraid not, your Majesty. They leave Kronburg for England to-day by the Orient Express.”
“Do you happen to remember at what hour the train starts?”
“I believe at twelve.”
Leopold pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes past eleven. Forty times sixty seconds, and the girl would be gone.
The blood rushed to his face. Barring accidents, he could catch her if he ordered his motor-car, and left at once. But to cut short his visit at Schloss Lyndalberg, would be virtually to take the world into his secret. Let him allege important state business at the capital, if he chose, gossip would still say that the girl had fled, that he had pursued her. The Baroness knew already; others would chatter as if they knew; that was inevitable—if he went.
A month ago (when yielding to inclination meant humbling his pride as Emperor and man), such a question would have answered itself. Now, it answereditself also, the only difference being that the answer was exactly opposite to what it would have been a month earlier.
“Baroness, forgive me,” he said quickly. “I must go. I can’t explain.”
“You need not try,” she answered him, softly.
“Thank you, a hundred times. Make everything as straight for me as you can. Say what you will. I give youcarte blanche, for we’re old friends, and I trust you.”
“It’s for me to thank your Majesty. You want your motor-car?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll telephone. Your chauffeur will have it here in six minutes. And your aide-de-camp. Will you—”
“I don’t want him, thanks. I’d rather go alone.”
Seven minutes later the big white motor-car was at the door which was the private entrance to the Emperor’s suite; and the Emperor was waiting for it, having forgotten all about the sable-lined coat which had been a present from the Czar. If it had been mid-winter, he would have forgotten, just the same; nor would he have known that it was cold.
There was plenty of time now to carry out his plan,which was to catch the Orient Express at the Kronburg station, and present himself to the Mowbrays in the train, later. As to what would happen afterwards, it was beyond planning; but Leopold knew that the girl had loved him; and he hoped that he would have Lady Mowbray on his side.
The only way of reaching Kronburg from Schloss Lyndalberg was by road; there was no railway connection between the two places. But the town and the castle were separated by a short eight miles, and until checked by traffic in the suburbs, the sixty horse-power car could cover a mile in less than two minutes.
Unfortunately, however, police regulations were strict, and of this Leopold could not complain, as he had approved them himself. Once, he was stopped, and would certainly not have been allowed to proceed, had he not revealed himself as the Emperor, the owner of the one unnumbered car in Rhaetia. As it was, he had suffered a delay of five minutes; and just as he was congratulating himself on the goodness of his tires, which had made him no trouble for many weeks, a loud report as of a pistol shot gave warning of a puncture.
But there was not a moment to waste on repairs,Leopold drove on, on the rims, only to acknowledge presently the truth of an old proverb, “the more haste the less speed.”
Delayed by a torn and flapping tire, the car arrived at the big Central Station of Kronburg only five minutes before twelve. Leopold dashed in, careless whether he were recognized or no, and was surprised at the absence of the crowd which usually throngs the platform before the departure of the most important train of the day.
“Is the Orient Express late?” he asked of an inspector to whom he was but a man among other men.
“No, sir. Just on time. Went out five minutes ago.”
“But it isn’t due to start till twelve.”
“Summer time-table, sir. Autumn time-table takes effect to-day, the first of October. Orient Express departure changed to eleven-fifty.”
An unreasoning rage against fate boiled in the Emperor’s breast. He ruled this country, yet everything in it seemed to conspire in a plot to wreck his dearest desires.
For a few seconds he stood speechless, feeling as if he had been dashed against a blank wall, and there were no way of getting round it. Yet the secondswere but few, for Leopold was not a man of slow decisions.
His first step was to inquire the name of the town at which the Orient Express stopped soonest. In three hours, he learnt, it would reach Felgarde, the last station on the Rhaetian side of the frontier.
His first thought on hearing this was to engage a special, and follow; but even in these days there is much red tape entangled with railway regulations in Rhaetia. It soon appeared that it would be quicker to take the next train to Felgarde, which was due to leave in half an hour, and would arrive only an hour later than the Orient Express.
Leopold’s heart was chilled, but he shook off despondency and would not be discouraged. Telephoning to the hotel where the Mowbrays had been stopping, he learned that they had gone. Then he wrote out a telegram: “Miss Helen Mowbray, Traveling from Kronburg to Paris by Orient Express, Care of Station-master at Felgarde. I implore you leave the train at Felgarde and wait for me. Am following in all haste. Will arrive Felgarde one hour after you, and hope to find you at Leopoldhof.” So far the wording was simple. He had signified hisintention and expressed his wish, which would have been more than enough to assure the accomplishment of his purpose, had he been dealing with a subject. Unfortunately, however, Helen Mowbray was not a subject, and had exhibited no sign of subjection. It was therefore futile to prophesy whether or no she would choose to grant his request.
Revolving the pros and cons he was forced to conclude that she probably would not grant it—unless he had some new argument to bring forward. Yet what had he to urge that he had not already urged twice over? What could he say at this eleventh hour which would not only induce her to await his coming at Felgarde, but justify him in making a last appeal when he came to explain it in person?
As he stood pen in hand, suddenly he found himself recalling a fairy story which he had never tired of reading in his childhood. Under the disguise of fancy, it was a lesson against vacillation, and he had often said to himself as a boy, that when he grew up, he would not, like the Prince of the story, miss a gift of the gods through weak hesitation.
The pretty legend in his mind had for a hero a young prince who went abroad to seek his fortune,and received from one of the Fates to whom he paid a visit, three magic citrons which he must cut open by the side of a certain fountain. He obeyed his instructions; but when from the first citron sprang an exquisite fairy maiden, demanding a drink of water, the young man lost his presence of mind. While he sat staring, the lovely lady vanished; and with a second experiment it was the same. Only the third citron remained of the Fates’ squandered gifts, and when the Prince cut it in half, the maiden who appeared was so much more beautiful than her sisters, that in adoring wonder he almost lost her as he had lost the others.
“My knife is on the rind of the last citron now,” Leopold said to himself. “Let me not lose the one chance I have left.”
Last night he had believed that there would not be room in a man’s heart for more love than his held for Helen Mowbray; but realizing to the full how great was the danger of losing her, he found that his love had grown beyond reckoning.