Spring had come round again for the second time since the beginning of the rebellion, which had blazed up so hotly at first, but which now lay quelled and crushed. Those wintry March days of the preceding year had not only brought woe on the Wilicza household, but had been pregnant with disaster to the whole insurrection. By the defeat of the Morynski corps, one of its chief supports had been lost to it. When overtaken by that sudden attack, which found him and his so totally unprepared--relying, as they did, upon the shelter afforded them by Prince Baratowski and his troops--Count Morynski had defended himself with all the energy of desperation; and even when, surrounded and outnumbered, he saw that all was lost, he yet fought on to the last, determined to sell his life and liberty as dearly as possible. So long as he remained at their head, his example inspired his wavering forces, and kept them together; but when the leader lay bleeding and unconscious on the ground, all resistance was at an end. Those who could not fly were hewn down, or taken prisoners by the victorious party. It was more than a defeat, it was an annihilation; and if that day's work did not decide the fate of the revolution, it yet marked a turning-point in its career. From that time forth, the fortunes of the insurgents declined, steadily and surely. The loss of Morynski, who had been by far the most redoubtable and energetic of the rebel leaders; the death of Leo Baratowski, on whom, in spite of his youth, the eyes of his countrymen were turned; in whom, by virtue of his name and family traditions their hopes and expectations centred--these were heavy blows for a party which had long been split into factions, and divided against itself, and which now fell still further asunder. Occasionally, it is true, the waning star would gleam out brightly for a moment. There were other conflicts, other battles glorious with heroic acts and deeds of desperate valour; but the fact stood out ever more and more plainly, that the cause for which they fought was a lost cause. The insurrection, which at first had spread over the whole land, was forced back into narrower and narrower limits. Post after post fell into the hands of the enemy; one troop after another was dispersed, or melted away, and the year, which at its opening had seen the horizon lurid with revolutionary flames, before its close saw the fire quenched, the last spark extinguished. Nothing but ashes and ruins remained to testify of the death-struggle of a people over whom the fiat of history has long since gone forth.
A weary interval elapsed before Count Morynski's fate was decided. He first awoke to consciousness in a dungeon, and for a time his serious, nay, as it was at first believed, mortal wounds rendered all proceedings against him objectless. For months he lingered in the most precarious state, and when at length he recovered, it was to find himself on the threshold of life, confronted with his death-warrant. For a leader of the revolution, taken armed and in actual fight, no other fate could be reserved. Sentence of death had been passed on him, and would most assuredly have been carried out in this, as in numberless other cases, but for his long and dangerous illness. His conquerors had not thought fit to inflict capital punishment on a man supposed to be dying, and when, later on, it became practicable to apply the law in all its rigour, the rising had been altogether suppressed, all danger to the land averted. The victors' obdurate severity relaxed in its turn. Count Morynski was reprieved, his sentence commuted to exile for life; exile in its bitterest form, indeed, for he was condemned to deportation to one of the most distant parts of Siberia--a terrible favour to be granted a man whose whole life had been one long dream of freedom, and who, even during the years of his former banishment in France, had never known any restriction on his personal liberty.
He had not seen those dear to him since the evening on which he had taken leave of them at Wilicza. Neither his sister, nor even his daughter, could obtain permission to see him. All their attempts to reach him were foiled by the strict watch kept on the prisoner, by the careful measures taken to shut him off from all possible intercourse with the outer world. For this strict watch they had, indeed, themselves to blame. More than once had they sought to rescue him from his captivity. So soon as the Count was on the road to recovery, every resource the Princess and Wanda had at their command was employed to facilitate his flight; but all their plans for his deliverance failed, the last experiment costing Pawlick, the faithful old servant of the Baratowski house, his life. He had volunteered for the perilous service, and had even so far succeeded as to put himself in communication with Morynski. The prisoner had been apprised of what was doing, the plan for his escape had been agreed upon, but Pawlick was surprised while engaged in the preparations for it, and, flying from the spot in the first impulse of his alarm, was shot down by the sentinels. The discovery of this scheme resulted in a still closer guard of the unhappy captive, and a keen and vigilant observation of his friends at large. They could take no further step without arousing suspicion, and increasing the hardships to which their brother and father was subjected. They were fain to yield at last to the hopeless impossibility of the case.
Immediately after the death of her younger son, the Princess had quitted Wilicza, and taken up her residence at Rakowicz. People thought it very natural she should not leave her orphaned niece alone. Waldemar knew better what drove his mother away. He had silently concurred when she told him of her resolve, making not the slightest attempt to combat it. He knew that she could no longer bear to live on at the Castle, that the constant sight of himself was intolerable to her; for had he not been the cause of the catastrophe by which Leo had lost his life and destruction had overtaken the troops committed to Leo's charge? Perhaps it was a relief to Nordeck that the Princess should go, now that he was obliged daily and hourly to wound her by the manner of his rule at Wilicza. Having with iron determination once taken the reins in hand, he held them in a like grasp of iron, stern and steady guidance being indeed urgently called for. He had been right in saying that chaos reigned on his estates: no other word would so aptly have described the disorder which the twenty years of mismanagement during his late guardian's lifetime and the four years of Baratowski régime had bequeathed to him; but now, with incredible energy, he set himself to the work of bringing order out of chaos. At first Waldemar had enough to do with all his might to stem the tide of rebellion which, raging beyond the frontier, threatened to overflow his land; but when once he felt he had free play and liberty of action, when the insurrection with the thousand secret links binding it to Wilicza showed signs of dying out, a process of transformation began, quite unparalleled in its completeness. Such of the officials as failed to render implicit obedience were dismissed, and those who remained were subjected to severest control. The whole service of the woods and forests was placed in other hands; new foresters and rangers were appointed; the leased-out farms were--in some cases at a great money sacrifice--redeemed from the tenants in possession, and incorporated into the main estate, of which the young proprietor himself was sole administrator. It was a gigantic undertaking for one man single-handed to regulate and govern so vast a concern, especially now, when old things were overturned and the new not yet established, when there was no cohesion, nothing worked in joint; but Waldemar showed himself equal to the task. He had finally won the day in his contest with his subordinates. The population about Wilicza still remained hostile; its hatred of the German in him was abiding and consistent; but even the outsiders had learned to feel the master's hand, and to bend to its guiding impulse. By the Princess's departure the malcontents lost their firmest support, and the collapse of the movement in the neighbouring province quenched the spirit of resistance on this side the border. There could, indeed, be no question as yet of that peaceful, well-ordered calm to be found on similar estates in other provinces. Neither the times nor circumstances could admit of such a state of things; but a beginning was made, the path cleared, and the rest must be left for the future to work out.
Herr Frank, the steward, was still at Wilicza. He had put off his removal for a year, yielding to the express wish of his employer, who was most desirous of keeping this clever, experienced ally at his side for a while. Now only, when the most urgent measures for the re-establishment of order had been successfully taken, did Frank definitely resign his office, with a view to carrying out that long-cherished project of his, of settling down on his own land. The pretty and not unimportant estate which he had bought, lay in another province, in a pleasant situation and in full enjoyment of peace and order, strongly contrasting in this last respect with the old Polish neighbourhood where mischief was ever brewing, where the very air was full of plots, against which the steward had battled for twenty years, but which his soul abhorred. Two months would elapse before the purchaser could take possession of his new home; in the mean time he stayed on at Wilicza in his old position.
As to Gretchen, the fact that she was her father's darling had been amply demonstrated on the occasion of her marriage; her dowry exceeded all the calculations which Assessor Hubert had so minutely entered into for the benefit of another. The wedding had taken place in the preceding autumn, and the newly married pair had gone to live in J----, where Professor Fabian now actually filled the post which had been offered to him, and where 'we meet with the most extraordinary success,' said his wife, writing to her father. Fabian overcame his timid dread of a public life more easily and quickly than he could have believed possible, and justified all the expectations entertained with regard to the author of the 'History of Teutonism,' who had so suddenly sprung into fame. His amiable, modest manners, which stood out in strong contrast to his predecessor's uncourteous and overbearing ways, won for him the general good-will; and his young and blooming wife contributed not a little to the advancement of his social position, so gracefully did she preside over the charming home which her father's generous kindness had fitted up with every elegance and comfort. The young couple were now about to pay their first visit to the paternal roof, and were expected to arrive at Wilicza in the course of a few days.
Things had not gone so well with Assessor Hubert, though a quite unexpected and rather considerable accession of fortune had lately come to him. Unfortunately, the event which procured him the legacy, deprived the family of its man of mark. Professor Schwarz had died some months before; and, that celebrated scholar being unmarried, his fortune went to his nearest of kin. Hubert's pecuniary position was greatly improved thereby, but what did it profit him? The bride on whom he had so surely counted had given herself to another, and as yet he did not hold his Counsellorship. There seemed, indeed, for the present, small prospect of his promotion, although he outdid himself in official zeal, although he kept the police department of L---- in a twitter of perpetual alarm with his so-called discoveries, and would have counted no exertions too great, could he, in that year of revolution, but have laid hands on a traitor or two, conspiring against his own State. In this hope he was, however, still destined to be disappointed. And this same State behaved in a manner altogether disgraceful towards its most faithful servant; it seemed to have no fitting sense of his self-sacrifice and general devotedness, but rather to incline to the view taken by Frank, who declared, in his outspoken way, that the Assessor was doing one stupid thing after another, and would get himself turned out of the service before long. Indeed, at every fresh promotion, Hubert was passed over in so pointed a fashion that his colleagues began to laugh at and to taunt him with his nonsuccess. Then a dark resolve shaped itself in the mind of this deeply injured man. Schwarz's legacy had made him quite independent; why should he longer endure to be so overlooked and neglected? why continue to serve this ungrateful State, which persistently refused to recognise his brilliant abilities, while insignificant men like Dr. Fabian were called to fill important posts and had distinctions heaped on them?
Hubert spoke of tendering his resignation. He even mentioned the subject in the presence of the President; but great was his mortification when that magnate, with crushing affability, encouraged him in the idea. His Excellency was of opinion that the Assessor, with his private means, was in no need of an official position, and would do well to withdraw from its fatigues. Besides, he was of rather an 'excitable' temperament, and such duties as his required, above everything, calmness and reflection. Hubert felt something of his celebrated relative's misanthropy arise within him, as he went home after this conversation, and, on the spur of the moment, drew up his letter of resignation. This letter was sent off and actually accepted! As yet, neither the State nor the police department of L---- had been thrown out of their accustomed grooves by the circumstance, but some disturbance might be looked for in the ensuing month, when his threatened retirement would assume the proportions of an accomplished fact. The nephew had in him too much of that uncle, whose unfortunate strategy he had lately imitated, not to live in expectation of some impending catastrophe.
In the courtyard at Rakowicz stood the horse of the young lord of Wilicza. It happened but rarely that Nordeck rode over to this house, and when he came, his visits were of short duration. The breach between him and his nearest relations was still unhealed; late events seemed, indeed, rather to have widened it, to have sundered them still more completely.
Countess Morynska and Waldemar were alone together in the lady's private sitting-room. Wanda was much changed. She had always been pale, but with a paleness which had nothing in common with the deathly hue now overspreading her face. Visible tokens were there of all that she had suffered of late--suffered, in knowing the father she so passionately loved in prison, sick nigh unto death without the power of going to him and allaying his pain even for a moment, in witnessing the final wreck and failure of those bright dreams of liberty, for which he had so enthusiastically staked his life, and which were not without a powerful hold on his daughter's soul. Mortal anxiety as to the decision of this twofold destiny, constant vacillation between hope and fear, the agitating suspense of each fresh attempt at rescue--these all had left most evident traces. Wanda's was one of those natures which will face the heaviest misfortunes with desperate energy so long as a glimmer of hope is left, but which, when once this glimmer is extinguished, break down utterly. She seemed nearly to have reached this despairing point. At the present moment a sort of feverish excitement upheld her. She had evidently rallied what was but too surely her last remaining strength.
Waldemar stood before her, unchanged, haughty and unbending as ever. In his manner there was but little of that forbearance to which the young Countess's appearance made so urgent an appeal. His attitude was almost menacing, and mingled anger and pain were in his voice as he spoke to her.
"For the last time I entreat you to give up the thought. You would only incur death yourself, without being of any help to your father. It would be one torment more for him to see you dying before his eyes. You are bent on following him into that fearful desert, that murderous climate, to which the strongest succumb; you, who from your earliest youth have been delicately nursed, and surrounded by all life's comforts, purpose now to expose yourself to the most cruel privations. The tried and tempered steel of the Count's endurance may possibly hold out under them, but you would fall a victim before many months were over. Ask the doctor, ask your own face; they will tell you that you would not live a year in that terrible land."
"Do you think my father will live longer?" replied Wanda, with a trembling voice. "We have nothing more to hope or expect from life, but we will at least die together."
"And I?" asked Waldemar, with bitter reproach.
She turned away without answering him.
"And I?" he repeated, more vehemently. "What shall I do? What is to become of me?"
"You at least are free. You have life before you. Bear it--I have worse to bear!"
An angry remonstrance was on Waldemar's lips; but he glanced at that pale, troubled face, and that glance made him pause. He forced himself to be calm.
"Wanda, when, a year ago, we came at last to understand each other, the promise you had given my brother stood between us. I would have fought my battle, have won you from him at any cost; but it never came to that. His death has torn down the barrier, and no matter what may threaten us from without, it is down, and we are free. By Leo's newly opened grave, while the sword was still impending over your father's head, I did not dare speak to you of love, of our union. I forced myself to wait, to see you but seldom, and only for a few minutes at a time. When I came over to Rakowicz, you and my mother let me feel that you still looked on me as an enemy; but I hoped for better days, for a happier future, and now you meet me with such a determination as this! Can you not understand that I will combat it as long as breath is left in me? 'We will die together!'--easily said and easily done when bullets are flying thick and fast, when, like Leo, one may be shot to the heart in a moment. But have you reflected what death in exile really may be? A slow wasting away; a long protracted struggle against privations which break the spirit before they destroy the body; far from one's country, cut off from the world and its interests, from all that intellectual life which to you is as necessary as the air you breathe; to be weighed down and gradually stifled by the load of misery! And you require of me that I shall endure to see it, that I shall stand by, and suffer you voluntarily to dedicate yourself to such a fate?"
A slight shudder passed through the young Countess's frame. The truth of his description may have gone home to her; but she persisted in her silence.
"And your father accepts this incredible sacrifice," went on Waldemar, more and more excitedly, "and my mother gives her approval to the plan. Their object is simply this, to drag you from my arms, to achieve which they will even subject you to a living death. Had I fallen instead of Leo, and the present cruel fate overtaken the Count, he would have commanded you to stay, my mother would energetically have defended her son's rights, and would have compelled you to give up so ill-judged a scheme; but now, they themselves have suggested these ideas of martyrdom, although they know that it will be your death. It does away with all prospect of our union, even in the far distant future, and that is enough for them!"
"Do not speak so bitterly," Wanda interrupted him. "You do my family injustice. I give you my word that, in taking this resolution, I have been guided by none. My father is advancing towards old age. His wounds, his long imprisonment, more than all else, the defeat of our cause, have broken him down morally and physically. I am all that is left to him, the one tie which still binds him to life. I am his altogether. The lot, which you so forcibly described just now, will be his lot. Do you think I could have one hour's peace at your side, knowing him to be journeying towards such a fate alone, abandoned to his doom, feeling that I myself was bringing on him the crudest grief of his life, by marrying you, whom he still looks on as one of our enemies? The one mitigation of his terrible sentence I could obtain--and that with the utmost difficulty--was a permission for me to accompany my father. I knew that I should have a hard fight with you--how hard it would be I am only learning now. Spare me, Waldemar, I have not much strength left."
"No, not for me," said Waldemar, bitterly. "All the strength and love in you are given to your father. What shall become of me, how I am to endure the misery of separation, you do not stay to enquire. I was a fool when I believed in that impulse which threw you into my arms in a moment of danger. You were 'Wanda' to me but for an instant. When I saw you next day, you spoke to me as Countess Morynska, and are so speaking to me to-day. My mother is right. Your national prejudices are your very heart's blood, the food on which you have been nourished since your infancy; you cannot renounce them without renouncing life itself--to them we are both to be offered up--to them your father is ready to sacrifice his only child. He would never, never have consented that you should accompany him, if the man, who loved you, had been a Pole. I being that man, he will agree to any plan which may part you from me. What matter, if only he can preserve you from the German, if he stand faithfully by the national creed? Can you Poles feel nothing but hate--hate which stretches even beyond the grave?"
"If my father were free, I might perhaps find courage to set him and all that you call prejudice at defiance," said Wanda, in a low voice. "As it is, I cannot, and"--here all her old energy gleamed forth anew--"I will not, for it would be betraying my duty as his child. I will go with him, even though it costs me my life. I will not leave him alone in his distress."
She spoke these words with a steady decision which showed her resolution to be unalterable. Waldemar seemed to feel it. He gave up his resistance.
"When do you set out?" he asked, after a pause.
"Next month. I am not to see my father again until we meet at O----. There my aunt will also be allowed one interview with him. She will go with me so far. You see we need not say good-bye to-day; we have some weeks before us. But promise me not to come to Rakowicz in the mean time, not again to assail me with reproaches and arguments, as you have this morning. I need all my courage for the hour of parting, and you rob me of it with your despair. We shall see each other yet once again--until then, farewell!"
"Farewell," he said, shortly, almost roughly, without looking at her, or taking the hand she held out to him.
"Waldemar!" There was heart-stirring sorrow and reproach in her tone, but it was powerless to lay his fierce irritation. Anger and misery at losing his love overcame for the moment all the young man's sense of justice.
"You may be right," he said, in his harshest tone, "but I cannot bring myself all at once to appreciate this exalted spirit of self-sacrifice--still less to share it. My whole nature rises up in protest against it. As, however, you insist on carrying your plan into execution, as you have irrevocably decreed our parting, I must see how I can get through existence alone. I shall make no further moan, that you know. My bitterness only offends you, it will be best that I should be silent. Farewell, Wanda."
A conflict was going on in Wanda's mind. She knew that it only needed one word from her to change all his harshness and austerity into soft tenderness; but to speak that word now would be to renew the contest, to endanger the victory so hardly won. She was silent, paused for a second, then bowed her head slightly, and left the room.
Waldemar let her go. He stood with his face turned to the window. Many bitter emotions were written on that face, but no trace was there of the resignation which the woman he loved had required of him. Leaning his brow against the panes, he remained long motionless, lost in thought, and only looked up at last on hearing his name spoken.
It was the Princess who had come in unnoticed. How the last year with all its cruel blows had told upon this woman! When, in the old days, her son had met her in C---- after a separation of years, she had just suffered a heavy loss; then as now she had been draped in deepest mourning. But her husband's death had not bent her proud energetic spirit; she had clearly recognised the duties devolving on her as a widow and a mother, had designed, and steadily carried out, the new plan of life which for a time had made her ruler and mistress of Wilicza. She had overcome her grief, because self-control was necessary, because there were other tasks before Baratowski's widow than that merely of deploring his loss, and Princess Hedwiga had ever possessed the enviable faculty of subordinating her dearest feelings to the outward calls of necessity.
Now, however, it was otherwise. The mourner still bore herself erect, and, at a first cursory glance, no very striking alteration might have been remarked in her; but he who looked closer would have seen the change which Leo Baratowski's death had wrought in his mother. There was a rigid look on her features; not the quiescence of still resignation, but the dead calm of one who has nothing more to hope or to lose, for whom life and its interests have no further concern. Those eyes, once so imperious, were dull now and shaded; the proud brow, which but a year before had been smooth as marble, was furrowed with deep lines, telling of anguish, and there were patches of grey in the dark hair. The blow, which had fallen on this mother, wounding her mortally in her pride as in her affections, had evidently attacked the very well-springs of her being, and the defeat of her people, the fate of the brother, whom, after Leo, she loved more than all on earth, had done the rest--the once inflexible, indomitable spirit was broken.
"Have you really been plying Wanda with argument and remonstrances again?" said she, and her voice too was changed; it had a dull, weary sound. "You must know that it is all in vain."
Waldemar turned round. His face had not cleared; it was dark and wrathful still, as he answered--
"Yes, it was all in vain."
"I told you so beforehand. Wanda is not one of those women who say No to-day and to-morrow throw themselves into your arms. Her resolution, once taken, was irrevocable. You ought to recognise this, instead of distressing her by re-opening a useless strife. It is you, and you alone, who show her no mercy."
"I?" exclaimed Waldemar fiercely. "Who was it, then, that suggested this resolution to her?"
The Princess's eyes met his without flinching. "No one," she replied. "I, as you know, have long since ceased to interfere between you. I have learned by too bitter experience how powerless I am to oppose your passion ever again to attempt to check it, but I neither can nor will prevent Wanda from going. She is all my brother has in the world. She will only do her duty in following him."
"To her death," added Waldemar.
The Princess was sitting now, wearily resting her head on her hand.
"Death has come near us too often of late for any one of us to fear it. When the strokes of Fate fall thick and fast, as they have fallen upon us, one grows familiar with the worst; and this is the case with Wanda. We have nothing more to lose, therefore nothing to fear. This unhappy year has blighted other hopes than yours; so many have gone to their graves mid blood and tears! You will have to bear it, if, to all the other ruins, the wreck of your happiness is added."
"You would hardly forgive me were I to rescue my happiness from the ruin of your hopes," said Waldemar, bitterly. "Well, you need not be uneasy. I have seen plainly to-day that Wanda is not to be moved."
"And you?"
"Well, I submit."
The Princess scanned his face for some seconds.
"What are you thinking of doing?" she asked suddenly.
"Nothing; you hear--I give up hope and submit to the inevitable."
His mother's eye still rested scrutinisingly upon him.
"You do _not_ submit, or I am much mistaken in my son. Is that resignation which is written on your brow? You have some plan, some mad, perilous project. Beware! Wanda's own will stands opposed to you. She will yield to no compulsion, not even from you."
"We shall see that," replied the young man, coldly--he gave up denial, finding the mask was seen through. "In any case, you may set your mind perfectly at ease. My plan may be a mad one, but if it presents any danger, that danger will be mine only--at most, my life will be at stake."
"At most, your life?" repeated the Princess. "And you can say that to reassure your mother!"
"Pardon me, but I think there has been small question with you of a mother's feelings since the day you lost your Leo."
The Princess gazed fixedly on the ground.
"From that hour you have let me feel that I am childless," she said in a low tone.
"I?" exclaimed Waldemar. "Was it for me to put obstacles in the way of your leaving Wilicza. I knew right well that you were hurrying away to escape from me, that the sight of me was intolerable to you. Mother"--he drew nearer her involuntarily, and, harsh and unsparing as were his words, they yet told of a secret rankling pain--"when all your self-control gave way, and you sank down weeping on my brother's corpse, I dared not say one comforting word--I dare not even now. I have always been a stranger, an alien from your heart; I never held a place in it. If, from time to time, I have come over here to Rakowicz, it was because I could not live without seeing Wanda. I have never thought of seeking you, any more than you have sought me in this time of mourning; but truly the blame of our estrangement does not lie at my door. Do not impute it to me as a crime that I left you alone in the bitterest hour of your life."
The Princess had listened in silence, not attempting to interrupt him; but as she answered, her lips moved convulsively, contracted, as it were, by some inward spasm.
"If I have loved your brother more than you, I have lost him--how have I lost him! I could have borne that he should fall, I myself sent him out to fight for his country--but that he should fall in such a way!" Her voice failed her, she struggled for breath, and there was a pause of some seconds before she could continue. "I let my Leo go without a word of pardon, without the last farewell for which he prayed on his knees, and that very day they laid him at my feet shot through the breast. All that is left to me of him--his memory--is indissolubly connected with that fatal act of his which brought destruction on our troops. My people's cause is lost; my brother is going to meet a doom worse by far than death. Wanda will follow him. I stand altogether alone. I think you may be satisfied, Waldemar, with the manner in which Fate has avenged you."
In the utter weariness of her voice, the dull rigidity of her features, there was something far more pathetic than in the wildest outbreak of sorrow. Waldemar himself could but be impressed by it; he bent down over her.
"Mother," said he, meaningly; "the Count is still in his own country, Wanda is still here. She has to-day unconsciously pointed out to me a way in which I may yet hope to win her. I shall take that way."
The Princess started up in alarm. Her look sought his anxiously, enquiringly; she read her answer in his eyes.
"You mean to attempt ..."
"What you two have attempted before me. You have failed, I know. Perhaps I shall succeed better."
A ray of hope illumined the Princess's countenance, but it died out again immediately. She shook her head.
"No, no; do not undertake it. It is useless; and if I say so, you may rest assured that no means have been left untried. We have made every effort, and all in vain. Pawlick has paid for his fidelity with his life."
"Pawlick was an old man," replied Waldemar, "and an anxious, timorous nature to boot. He had devotion enough for any task, but he had not the requisite prudence, not the requisite audacity at a critical moment. Such an enterprise demands youth and a bold spirit; above all, it is essential that the principal should act in person, trusting to no one but himself."
"And himself incur all the terrible danger. We have learned, to our cost, how they guard their frontiers and their prisoners out yonder. Waldemar, am I to lose you too?"
Waldemar looked at her in amazement, as the last words burst from her lips like a cry of pain. A bright flush overspread his face.
"Your brother's freedom depends on it," he reminded her.
"Bronislaus is beyond rescue," said the Princess, hopelessly. "Do not risk your life now in our lost cause. It has cost victims enough! Think of Pawlick's fate, of your brother's death!" She seized his hand, and held it tightly. "You shall not go. I was over rash just now when I said I had nothing more to lose; at this moment I feel there is one thing left to me. I will not give up you too, my last, my only child. Do not go, my son. Your mother entreats you; do not go!"
At length her heart warmed towards him with maternal love; at length this love spoke to him in tender accents, such as Waldemar had never before heard from her lips. Even to this proud, inexorable woman an hour had come, when, seeing all around her tottering and falling, she was fain to cling desperately to the one support which Fate had left her. The spurned, neglected son resumed his rights at last. True, the grave had opened for his brother, before any such rights were accorded to him.
Any other mother and son might now have clasped each other in a long embrace, striving in this rush of new-born tenderness to drown all memory of their long, deep-rooted estrangement; these natures were too hard, and too alike in their hardness, for any such swift and absolute revulsion of feeling. Waldemar spoke no word, but for the first time in his life he lifted his mother's hand to his lips, and pressed them on it long and fervently.
"You will stay?" implored the Princess.
He drew himself up. The bright flush was still on his face, but the last few minutes seemed to have transfigured it. All rancour and bitterness had vanished from his features; his eyes still sparkled with defiance, but it was the glad defiance of one confident of victory, and ready to enter the lists and do battle with Fate.
"No," he replied, "I shall go; but I thank you for those words--they make the venture a light one to me. You have always looked upon me as your enemy, because I would not lend my hand to further your plans. I could not do that--I cannot now; but nothing forbids me to rescue the Count from the consequences of an inhuman verdict. At all events, I am determined to make the attempt, and, if any one can accomplish it, I shall. You know the spur which urges me on."
The Princess gave up all resistance. She could not remain quite hopeless in face of his steady assurance.
"And Wanda?" she asked.
"She said to me to-day, 'If my father were free, I might find courage to defy all and everything for your sake.' Tell her I may one day remind her of those words. Now ask me nothing more, mother. You know that I must act alone, for I alone am unsuspected. You are distrusted and watched. Any step taken by you would betray the enterprise, any news sent you by me would jeopardise it. Leave all in my hands; and now, farewell. I must away, we have no more time to lose."
He touched his mother's hand with his lips once more, and hastened from her. The Princess felt something akin to a pang at this sudden, rapid leave-taking. She went up to the window to wave a last adieu to the traveller as he hurried away; but she waited in vain. His eyes sought, indeed, one of the Castle windows, as he rode slowly, lingeringly through the courtyard; but that window was not hers. He gazed steadfastly, persistently, up to Wanda's room, as though such a look must have power to draw his love to him, to force from her a parting 'God speed!' It was for her sake alone he was entering on the perilous task before him; his mother, the reconciliation so lately sealed, all faded away and sank to nought when his Wanda came in question.
And he really obtained his wish of seeing her once more. The young Countess must have appeared at the bay-window, for Waldemar's face suddenly lighted up, as though a ray of sunshine had fallen athwart it. He waved his hand to her, then gave his Norman the rein, and dashed, quick as the wind, out of the Castle-yard.
The Princess still stood in her place, gazing after him. He had not looked back to her--she was forgotten! At this thought, for the first time that stab went through her heart which had so often traversed Waldemar's at sight of her tenderness to Leo--and yet in this moment a conviction she had hitherto refused fully to admit forced itself irresistibly upon her--a conviction that the inheritance, all share of which had been denied her darling, had fallen to her first-born son, that to him his mother's strength and energy had descended, that in mind and character he approved himself very blood of her blood.
In the forenoon of a cool but sunny May day, Herr Frank was returning from L---- whither he had been to fetch his daughter and son-in-law. Professor Fabian and his wife were seated in the carriage with him. The former's new academical dignity seemed to agree right well with him; he looked in better health and spirits than ever. His young wife, in consideration of her husband's position, had assumed a certain stateliness of demeanour which she did her very best to maintain, and which was in comic contrast to her fresh, youthful appearance. Fortunately, she often fell out of her rôle, and became true Gretchen Frank once more; but at this moment, it was the Professor's wife who sat by her father's side with much gravity of deportment, giving him an account of their life in J----.
"Yes, papa, it will be a great relief to us to come and stay with you for a time," said she, passing her handkerchief over her blooming face, which certainly did not look as though it needed relief. "We University people have so many claims upon us. We are expected to interest ourselves in every possible subject, and our position requires so much from us. We Germanists stand well to the front in the scientific movement of the age."
"You certainly appear to stand very much to the front," said the steward, who was listening with some wonder. "Tell me, child, which of you really fills the professorial chair at J----, your husband or yourself?"
"The wife belongs to the husband, so it comes to the same," declared Gretchen. "Without me Emile never could have accepted the post, distinguished scholar as he is. Professor Weber said to him the day before yesterday in my presence, 'My worthy colleague, you are a perfect treasure to the University, as regards science, but for all the details of practical life you are worth absolutely nothing. In all such matters you are quite at sea. It is a mercy your young wife is so well able to supply your deficiencies.' He is quite right, is he not, Emile? Without me you would be lost in a social point of view."
"Altogether," assented the Professor, full of faith, and with a look of grateful tenderness at his wife.
"Do you hear, papa, he owns it," said she, turning to her father. "Emile is one of the few men who know how to appreciate their wives. Hubert never would have done that. By-the-by, how is the Assessor? Is not he made Counsellor even yet?"
"No, not yet, and he is so wrath at it that he has given in his resignation. At the beginning of next month he quits the service of the State."
"What a loss for all the future ministries of our country!" laughed Gretchen. "He had quite made up his mind he should come into office some day, and he used to practice the ministerial bearing when he was sitting in our parlour. Is he still tormented with the fixed idea of discovering traitors and conspirators everywhere?"
Frank laughed in his turn. "I really don't know, for I have hardly seen him since your engagement was announced, and never once spoken to him. He has laid my house under a ban ever since that time. You might certainly have told him the news in a more considerate manner. When he comes over to Wilicza, which does not happen often, he stops down in the village, and never comes near the manor-farm. I have no transactions with him now that Herr Nordeck has taken the direction of the police into his own hands--but the Assessor may pass for a rising man nowadays: he inherited the greater part of Schwarz's fortune. The Professor died a few months ago."
"Of bilious fever, probably," put in Mrs. Fabian.
"Gretchen!" remonstrated her husband, in a tone between entreaty and reproof.
"Well, he was of a very bilious temperament. He went just as much into that extreme as you do into the other with your mildness and forbearance. Just fancy, papa, directly after his nomination to J----, Emile wrote to the Professor, and assured him that he was quite innocent of all the disputes which had taken place at the University. As a matter of course, the letter was never acknowledged, notwithstanding which, my lord and husband feels himself called upon, now that this disagreeable but distinguished person has betaken himself to a better world, to write a grandiloquent article on him, deploring the loss to science, just as if the deceased had been his dearest friend."
"I did it from conviction, my dear," said Fabian, in his gentle, earnest way. "The Professor's ungenial temper too often acted as a hindrance to that full recognition of his talents which was due to them. I felt it incumbent on me to recall to the mind of the public what a loss science has sustained in him. Whatever may have been his defects of manner, he was a man of rare merit."
Gretchen's lip curled contemptuously.
"Well, he may have been; I'm sure I don't mind. But now to a more important matter. So Herr Nordeck is not in Wilicza?"
"No," replied the steward, laconically. "He has gone on a journey."
"Yes, we know that. He wrote to my husband not long ago, and said he was thinking of going over to Altenhof, and that he should probably spend a few weeks there. Just now, when he has his hands so full of business at Wilicza!--it seems strange!"
"Waldemar has always looked on Altenhof as his real home," said the Professor. "For that reason, he never could make up his mind to sell the estate which Herr Witold bequeathed to him by his will. It is natural he should wish to revisit the place where all his youth was passed."
Gretchen looked highly incredulous. "You ought to know your former pupil better. He is not likely to be troubled by any sentimental reminiscences of his youth at a time when he is engaged in the tremendous task of Germanising his Slavonian estates. No, there is something in the background, his attachment to Countess Morynska, probably. Perhaps he has resolved to put all thoughts of her out of his head--it would be the wisest thing he could do! These Polish women sometimes get quite absurd and irrational with their national fanaticism, and Countess Wanda is to the full as great a fanatic as any of them. Not to give her hand to the man she loves, just because he is a German! I would have taken my Emile, if he had been a Hottentot! and now he is always fretting over the supposed unhappiness of his dear Waldemar. He seriously believes that that personage has a heart like other human beings, which I, for one, emphatically deny."
"Gretchen!" said the Professor again, this time with an attempt to look severe, in which laudable effort he signally failed.
"Emphatically!" repeated his young wife. "When a man has a grief at his heart, he shows it one way or another. Herr Nordeck is as busy as possible, making such a stir here in Wilicza that all L---- is clapping its hands to its ears, and when he acted as best man at my wedding, there was not a trace of trouble to be seen in him."
"I have already told you that extreme reserve is one of Waldemar's chief characteristics," declared Fabian. "This passion might sap and utterly ruin him without his betraying anything of it to the eyes of others."
"A man who does not show it when he is crossed in love, can't have any very deep feelings," persisted Gretchen. "It was plain enough in you ten paces off. The last few weeks before our engagement, when you thought I was going to marry the Assessor, you went about with the most woe-begone countenance. I was dreadfully sorry for you; but you were so shy, there was no making you speak out."
The steward had abstained from all part in this conversation, being, apparently, fully taken up by an examination of the trees by the wayside. The road, which ran for a short distance along the bank of the river, became rather bad just at this place. The damage caused by the late high tides had not yet been repaired, and in the present dilapidated state of the quay, shaken by the constant wash of the water, some hesitation might reasonably be felt at driving over it. Frank, it is true, maintained that there was not the slightest danger, adding that he had passed over that very spot on his outward journey; but Gretchen did not place absolute reliance on these assurances. She preferred getting out, and walking the short distance to the neighbouring bridge. The gentlemen followed her example, and all three set out, taking a higher footpath, while the carriage proceeded at a slow pace over the quay below.
They were not the only travellers who considered caution the better part of valour.
From the bridge a carriage was seen approaching, the occupant of which appeared to share Gretchen's views. He called to the coachman to stop, and alighted in his turn, just as Frank and his companions reached the spot, and thus suddenly found themselves face to face with Herr Assessor Hubert.
This unexpected meeting caused some painful embarrassment on either side. The parties had not spoken since the day when the Assessor, furious at the engagement so recently contracted, had rushed out of the house, and the steward, under the impression that he had lost his reason, had sent the Inspector to look after him; but their acquaintance was of too old standing for them now to pass as strangers--they all felt that. Frank was the first to recover himself. He took the best possible way out of the difficulty by going up to the Assessor as though nothing had happened, offering him his hand in the most friendly manner, and expressing his pleasure at seeing him again at last.
The Assessor stood erect and stiff, clothed in black from head to foot. He had a crape band on his hat, and another on his arm. The family celebrity was duly mourned, but the money inherited appeared to have dropped some balm into the heart of the sorrowing nephew, for he looked the very reverse of disconsolate. There was a peculiar expression on his face to-day, an exalted self-satisfaction, a tranquil grandeur. He seemed in the humour to forgive all offences, to make peace with his kind--so, after a moment's hesitation, he took the offered hand, and replied by a few polite words.
The Professor and Gretchen now came forward. Hubert cast one glance of dark reproach at the young lady--who, in her little travelling-hat and flowing veil, certainly looked charming enough to awaken regretful feelings in the heart of her former adorer--bowed to her, and then turned to her husband.
"Professor Fabian," said he, "you have sympathised with the great loss which my family, and, with it, the whole scientific world, has experienced. The letter you wrote to my uncle long ago convinced him that you were blameless with regard to the intrigues which had been directed against him, that you at least could recognise his great merits without envy or jealousy. He expressed so much to me himself, and did you ample justice. The eulogistic notice, which you have dedicated to his memory, does you great honour; it has been a source of consolation to his surviving relatives. I thank you in the name of the family."
Fabian heartily pressed the speaker's hand, which the latter had voluntarily extended towards him. His predecessor's hostile attitude and the Assessor's grudge against him had weighed heavily on his soul, innocent as he knew himself to be of the mortification endured by both. He condoled with the afflicted nephew in terms of the sincerest sympathy.
"Yes, at the University we all deeply regret the loss of Professor Schwarz," said Gretchen; and she was hypocritical enough to offer, in her turn, a long string of condolences on the death of a man whom she had thoroughly detested, and whom, even in his grave, she could not forgive for his criticism on the 'History of Teutonism.'
"And so you have really tendered your resignation?" asked the steward, adverting to another topic. "You are leaving the service of the State, Herr Assessor?"
"In a week," assented Hubert. "But, with respect to the title you give me, Herr Frank, I must permit myself a slight correction. I ..." Here followed a dramatic pause, far longer and more impressive than that which in bygone days was intended to prelude his love declaration, during which pause he looked at his auditors successively, as though to prepare them for some most weighty intelligence; then, drawing a long breath, he concluded, "I was yesterday promoted to the rank of Counsellor."
"Thank goodness, at last!" said Gretchen, in a loud whisper, while her husband caught hold of her arm in alarm, to warn her against further imprudent utterances. Fortunately, Hubert had not heard the exclamation. He received Frank's congratulations with a dignity befitting the occasion, and then bowed graciously in reply to the good wishes of the young couple. His placable frame of mind was now explained. The new Counsellor stood high above all offences committed against the former Assessor. He forgave all his enemies--he even forgave the State, which had shown so tardy an appreciation of his worth.
"The promotion will make no change in my determination," he continued, it never having occurred to him that to this very determination he owed his advancement. "The State sometimes finds out too late the value of its servants; but the die is cast! I still, of course, fulfil the functions of my former position, and in this, the last week of my official activity, an important trust has been confided to me. I am now on my way to W----."
"Across the frontier?" said Fabian, in surprise.
"Exactly. I have to consult with the authorities there relative to the capture and reddition of a prisoner charged with high treason."
Gretchen gave her husband a look which said plainly: "There, he is beginning again already! Even the Counsellorship has not cured him of it"--but Frank had grown attentive all at once; he disguised any interest he might feel in the subject, however, and merely remarked in a careless, indifferent way--
"I thought the insurrection was at an end."
"But there are conspiracies on foot still," cried Hubert, eagerly. "A striking proof of this is now before us. You, probably, are not aware as yet that Count Morynski, the leader, the soul of the whole revolution, has escaped from prison."
Fabian started, and his wife evinced a lively surprise; but the steward only said quietly, "Impossible!"
The new Counsellor shrugged his shoulders. "It is, unfortunately, no longer any secret. The fact is known already all through L----, where Wilicza and Rakowicz still form the centre of general interest. Of course, Wilicza is beyond suspicion now, under Herr Nordeck's energetic rule; but Rakowicz is the residence of the Princess Baratowska, and I maintain that that woman is a source of danger to the whole province. There will be no peace so long as she remains in the land. Heaven knows whom she may now have stirred up to rescue her brother. Some reckless madman it must have been, who sets no store by his life. The prisoners under sentence of deportation are most closely guarded. Notwithstanding this, the accessory has, or the accessories have, managed to establish communication with the Count, and to furnish him with the means of escape. They have found their way into the interior of the fortress, have reached the very walls of his prison. Traces have been found which show that the fugitive was there received by them and conveyed past posts and sentries, over fortifications and ramparts--how is still an enigma. Half the sentinels on duty must have been bribed. The whole fort is in commotion at the unheard-of boldness of the enterprise. Scouts have been out all over the neighbourhood for the last ten days, but no clue has as yet been found."
Fabian at first had merely listened with some interest to Hubert's story, but as he heard such repeated mention of the amazing boldness of the undertaking, he began to be uneasy. A vague presentiment arose in his mind. He was about to put a hasty question, but just in time he met a warning look from his father-in-law. That look distinctly forbade him to speak. The Professor was silent, but his heart quailed within him.
Gretchen had not noticed this dumb intelligence between the two; she was following the tale with naïve and eager attention. Hubert went on:
"The fugitives cannot be far off, for the escape was discovered almost immediately. The Count has not yet passed the frontier, that is certain, and it is equally sure that he will make for it and attempt to get over on to German territory, where he would be in less danger. He will probably turn his steps to Rakowicz in the first place, Wilicza, thank God, being now closed to all such scheming plots and intrigues, though Herr Nordeck does not happen to be there just at present."
"No," said the steward, speaking with much decision. "He is over at Altenhof."
"I know; he told the President he was going there when he called to take leave of him. This absence of his will spare him much trouble and annoyance. It would be very painful to him to see his uncle captured and given up, as he will be beyond a doubt."
"What, you would give him up?" cried Gretchen, impetuously.
Hubert looked at her in astonishment.
"Of course; he is a criminal, convicted of treason to a friendly State. Its Government will insist upon his being delivered up."
The girl looked from her husband to her father; she could not understand how it was they neither of them joined in her expostulations, but Frank's eyes were fixed on something in the far distance, and Fabian uttered not a syllable.
Brave Gretchen, however, was not so easily intimidated. She indulged in a series of no very flattering comments on the 'friendly State,' and even directed some very pointed remarks against the Government of her own land. Hubert listened in horror. For the first time he thanked God in his heart that he had not made of this young lady a Counsellor's consort. She was proving herself unfit to be the wife of a loyal official. There was a taint of treason in her too!
"In your place, I should have refused the mission," she concluded at last. "Just on the eve of your retirement, you could very well have done so. I would not have closed my official career by delivering up a poor hunted captive into the hands of his tormentors."
"The Government has named me Counsellor," replied Hubert, solemnly emphasising the title, "and as such I shall do my duty. My State commands, I obey--but I see that my carriage has got safely over the critical spot. Madam, adieu; adieu, gentlemen. Duty calls me away!" and with a bow and a flourish, he left them.
"Did you hear, Emile?" asked the young lady, when they were once more seated in the carriage. "They have made him a Counsellor just a week before he retires, so that he shall have no time to do anything stupid in his new capacity. Well, he can't do much harm in future with the mere title!"
She went on in this way, discussing her old friend's advancement and Count Morynski's escape at great length, but received only short and unsatisfactory answers. Her father and husband had become remarkably monosyllabic, and it was fortunate that they soon reached the Wilicza domain, for the conversation began to flag hopelessly.
The Professor's wife found many occasions for surprise, some even for annoyance, during the course of the day. What perplexed her most, was her father's behaviour. He was undoubtedly pleased to have them there; he had taken her in his arms that morning and welcomed them both with such hearty warmth, yet it seemed as though their coming, which had been announced to him by a telegram the day before, was not quite opportune, as though he would willingly have deferred it a little. He declared himself to be overwhelmed with business, and appeared indeed to be constantly occupied. Soon after they got home, he took his son-in-law with him into his room, and they remained nearly an hour closeted there together.
Gretchen's indignation waxed hot within her on finding that she was neither included in this secret conference, nor enlightened as to its nature by her husband. She set herself to watch and to think, and suddenly many little things, which she had noticed during the journey, recurred to her mind. Skilfully putting these together, she arrived at a result, the correctness of which, to her mind, admitted of no doubt.
After dinner, the husband and wife remained alone together in the parlour. The Professor paced up and down the room in a manner very unusual to him, striving in vain to hide some inward uneasiness, but too much absorbed by his thoughts to notice the silent fit which had overtaken his young companion, generally so animated. Gretchen sat on the sofa, and watched him for some time. At last she advanced to the attack.
"Emile," she began, with a solemnity not exceeded by Hubert's, "Emile, I am shamefully treated here!"
Fabian looked up, greatly shocked.
"You! Good Heavens, by whom?"
"By my papa, and, what is worst of all, by my own husband."
The Professor was at his wife's side in a moment. He took her hand in his, but she drew it away very ungraciously.
"Shamefully!" she repeated. "You show no confidence in me whatever. You have secrets from me. You treat me like a child, me, a married woman, wife of a Professor of the J---- University! It is abominable!"
"Dear Gretchen," said Fabian, timidly, and then stopped.
"What was papa saying to you just now, when you were in his room?" enquired Gretchen. "Why do you not confide in me? What are these secrets between you two? Do not deny it, Emile, there are secrets between you."
The Professor denied nothing. He looked down, and seemed extremely oppressed and uncomfortable. His wife darted a severe, rebuking glance at him.
"Well, I will tell _you_, then. There is a new plot on foot at Wilicza, a conspiracy, as Hubert would say, and papa is in it this time, and he has dragged you into it too. The whole thing is connected with Count Morynski's rescue ..."
"Hush, child, for Heaven's sake!" cried Fabian in alarm; but Gretchen paid no heed to his adjuration; she went on quite undisturbed.
"And Herr Nordeck is not at Altenhof, that is pretty sure, or you would not be in such a state of anxiety. What is Count Morynski to you, or his escape either? But your beloved Waldemar is concerned in it, and that is why you are in such a flutter. It has been he who has carried off the Count--that is just the sort of thing he would do."
The Professor was struck dumb with astonishment at his wife's powers of discernment and combination. He was much impressed with her cleverness, but a little disturbed to hear her count off on her fingers those secrets which he had believed to be impenetrable.
"And no one says a word to me of it," continued Gretchen, with increasing irritation, "not a word, although you know very well I can keep a secret, though it was I, all by myself, who saved the Castle that time by sending the Assessor over to Janowo. The Princess and Countess Wanda will know everything. The Polish ladies always do know everything. _Their_ husbands and fathers make confidants of them--_they_ are allowed to take a part in politics, even in conspiracies; but we poor German women are always oppressed and kept in the background. We are humiliated, and treated like slaves ..." Here the Professor's wife was so overcome with the sense of her slavery and humiliation that she began to sob.
"Gretchen, my dear Gretchen, don't cry, I beseech you. You know that I have no secrets from you in anything concerning myself; but there are others implicated in this, and I have given my word to speak of it to no one, not even to you."
"How can a married man give his word not to tell his wife!" cried Gretchen, still sobbing. "It does not count for anything; no one has a right to ask it of him."
"Well, but I have given it," said Fabian in despair, "so calm yourself. I cannot bear to see you in tears. I ..."
"Well, this is a pretty specimen of petticoat government," exclaimed Frank, who had come in meanwhile unnoticed, and had been a witness of the little scene. "When she talks of oppression and slavery it seems to me my young lady makes a mistake in the person. And you can put up with that, Emile? Don't be offended--you may be a most remarkable scholar, but, as a husband, I must say you play a sorry part."
He could not have come to his son-in-law's aid more effectually than by these last words. Gretchen had no sooner heard them than she went over to her husband's side.
"Emile is an excellent husband," she declared, indignantly, the source of her tears suddenly drying up. "You need not reproach him, papa; it is right and proper that a husband should have some feeling for his wife."
Frank laughed. "Don't be so hasty, child, I meant no harm. Well, you have put yourself out quite needlessly. As you have guessed so near the truth, we must take you into the plot now, we can't help ourselves. News has just arrived ..."
"From Waldemar?" inquired the Professor, interrupting him with eager anxiety.
His father-in-law shook his head.
"No, from Rakowicz. We cannot hear from Herr Nordeck. He will either come or ... or we must make up our minds to the worst. But the Princess and her niece are to arrive in the course of the afternoon, and as soon as they are there, you must go up to the Castle. It may look strange that the two ladies, who have not been near Wilicza for a year, should come over just now so unexpectedly, and should remain there alone in the absence of the master. Your presence will give a more harmless colour to the business; it will seem quite a natural coincidence. You must pay a visit to the mother of your former pupil, and present Gretchen as your wife. That will satisfy the servant-folk. The ladies know the exact state of the case. I shall ride over to the border-station, and wait there with the horses, as has been agreed. And now, child, your husband must tell you all the rest, I have no time to lose."
He went, and Gretchen sat down on the sofa again to receive her husband's communications, well-pleased that she was now to be placed on a par with Polish women, and admitted to take part in a conspiracy.