Waldemar entered hastily, and was approaching his mother, when his glance fell upon Leo. His face expressed something more than astonishment; it blanched suddenly and a deathly terror crept over it. For some moments he seemed incapable of speech; he measured Leo from head to foot, and his eyes flashed scorn and contempt as he at length asked slowly and emphatically,--
"Are you here, Leo, at a time like this?"
Leo's face betrayed a sort of malignant satisfaction as he saw the object of his hatred right before him.
"You certainly were not expecting me," he said, with a sneer.
Waldemar did not answer; he paid no heed to the sneering tone, he was thinking only of the danger to which Leo had exposed himself in coming to Villica in the open day. He turned away to close the door leading to the next room, and then approaching his brother, he said,--
"No, I did not expect you; neither did our mother."
"I wished to congratulate you upon your heroic exploit at the border-forester's house, for you doubtless think it heroic," said the young prince, mockingly. "You shot the forester and overawed all the others; the cowards did not venture to touch you."
"They crossed the boundary that very night," replied Waldemar; "did they reach you?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. When did you leave your command?"
"Why do you catechise me in this way?" cried Leo, furiously. "I am here to callyouto an account. Come! We two have a settlement to make."
"You will remain here," said the princess, imperiously. "If a meeting between you must take place, let it be in my presence. Perhaps you will not then entirely forget that you are brothers."
"Brother or not," cried Leo, beside himself. "Waldemar has dealt treacherously with me. He knew that Wanda was my betrothed, but he has not hesitated to rob me of her and of her love. None but traitors and ren--"
The mother tried to check him, but in vain. The word renegade fell from his lips, and Waldemar started as if struck by a ball. The princess turned pale. It was not the insane fury of her younger son that frightened her, it was the expression in the face of the elder, and his menacing attitude. She feared him, and tried to restrain him, although he was unarmed, while Leo wore a sword at his side. With all the authority of a mother she stepped between them, and cried, in a commanding voice,--
"Waldemar--Leo--control yourselves! I demand obedience!"
Whenever the Princess Zulieski assumed this voice and manner, she was always sure to enforce submission. Her sons obeyed her involuntarily. Leo's hand slipped from the hilt of his sword, and Waldemar restrained his fury. He had been passing through a terrible conflict with rage and indignation, but his mother's words had brought him back to reason, and nothing more was needed to restore his self-control.
"Leo," he said, "I have borne insult enough from you; one word more, one single word, and no settlement between us can be possible except by a resort to arms. If yesterday you had the right to censure me, it is forfeited to-day. I love Wanda more than you suspect, for you have not, like me, fought against an ardent passion for years, and been driven through hatred and separation and mortal peril, to the consciousness that it is stronger than yourself; but not even for Wanda's sake would I have neglected my duty and sacrificed my honor. I would not have deserted my post and the soldiers who were intrusted to me; I would not have broken my oath of allegiance. You have done all this: our mother may decide which of us deserves the opprobrious name you hurl at me."
"What is this, Leo?" cried the princess, starting up in terror. "You are here with the knowledge and consent of your uncle? You had his express permission to come to Villica? Answer me!"
The face of the young prince had been colorless, it now became crimson; not daring to meet his mother's eye, he turned in a towering passion to his brother,--
"What do you know of my duties? Why should they concern you? You belong to our enemies. I have thus far held my place at the front, and I shall be there when needed; on this very account our business demands prompt action. I have not much time for settlement with you, I must return to my soldiers in a few hours."
"You are too late," said Waldemar, coldly; "you will not find them."
Leo apparently did not understand the import of these words; he gazed bewildered at his brother as if he were speaking in a foreign tongue.
"When did you leave your command?" repeated Waldemar, and with such terrible earnestness that his brother answered him half involuntarily,--
"Yesterday afternoon."
"The attack took place in the night; your detachment is dispersed--annihilated."
A shriek broke from the lips of the young prince. He rushed upon the speaker. "It is impossible--it cannot be! You lie! You only seek to frighten me away with such tidings," he cried.
"No, no, it cannot be!" interposed the princess, with quivering lips. "Waldemar, you can have no tidings of what occurred over the border during the night; I must have received them sooner than you. You are deceiving us; do not resort to such ignoble subterfuges!"
For some moments Waldemar gazed silently at his mother, who would sooner accuse him of falsehood than believe his brother guilty of a breach of faith. It must have been this consciousness that made his voice so icy and his words so pitiless, as he said,--
"Prince Zulieski was intrusted with an important position, and had the strictest orders not to leave it. He was in command of a detachment which protected his uncle's rear. When the attack was made, the prince was missing from his post. The subordinate officers proved unequal to the emergency; they had no definite plan of defence, and a massacre ensued. Some twenty men saved their lives by flight across the border, where they fell into the hands of our patrols. Three of the refugees lie out in the yard severely wounded; I have learned these facts from them. The rest of Prince Leo's soldiers are dispersed or slain."
"And my brother?" asked the princess, with forced composure. "What has become of the Morynskian corps?"
"I do not know," answered Waldemar. "It is said that the victors went on to W----. I have no intelligence of what has occurred there."
He was silent. A momentous, breathless pause followed. Leo had buried his face in his hands, hollow moans issued from his breast, and his whole frame was convulsed with anguish. The princess stood erect, her eyes were fixed upon him, she struggled for breath.
"Leave us alone, Waldemar," she said at last, in a hollow voice, but with her usual firmness.
Waldemar hesitated. His mother had always appeared cold, and often enough hostile to him; here in this very spot she had stood opposed to him as an embittered rival, when the strife for supremacy in Villica had broken out; but he had never seen her hard and pitiless as she appeared at this moment, and he, the stern, relentless Nordeck, was seized with apprehension and sympathy, as he read his brother's sentence in her face.
"Mother," he said gently.
"Go!" she repeated; "I have to deal with your brother; no third person must come between us. Leave us alone!"
Waldemar obeyed and left the room, but bitter and painful emotions swelled his heart to bursting as he went. He was banished when the mother wished to speak with Leo; it mattered not that she was now to let her younger son feel her anger, as she had so often allowed him to feel her affection; the elder son had no participation in either her joy or sorrow; he had always been a stranger to her, and such he must remain. He was told to go, he must not intrude between this mother and son, whether they met in love or hatred. But an emotion of pity touched this heart so cruelly defrauded of a mother's love: Waldemar knew that he was more than avenged, that his mother's love and pride were suffering the most cruel punishment in her favorite child, her idol.
He closed the door behind him, but remained in the ante-room to guard the entrance, for he knew the danger to which Leo was exposed. Prince Leo Zulieski had taken too prominent a part in the insurrection to escape even here, and he was liable to arrest and trial. He had acted very rashly in visiting the castle in broad daylight, and his presence was likely to become known. The guard that had brought the wounded prisoners was still in the village, and an escort with the other refugees might pass at any moment. Precautionary measures must be taken.
Waldemar stood at a window as far as possible from the door; he did not wish to hear anything of a conversation from which he was excluded, and it was impossible to catch a word, for the heavy folds of the velvet portiére shut out every sound. The interview was a lengthy one; more than half an hour had passed, and it still went on. Neither the mother nor Leo seemed to realize that the young soldier's danger was every moment increasing. At length Waldemar felt obliged to interrupt them. He entered the parlor, but was surprised at its silence.
The princess had left, and the door leading to her study was closed. Leo was alone in the room, and lay upon a sofa with his face buried in the cushions. He seemed completely crushed, and did not notice his brother's entrance. Waldemar approached and called him by name.
"Arouse yourself!" he said, in a low, earnest voice. "Care for your own safety! We are in close communication with L----, and I cannot guard the castle from visitors who might be dangerous to you. For the present, withdraw to your own chamber, which may be kept closed, as it has been during your absence. Paul is reliable. Come!"
Leo slowly raised his head; his face was white as death, every drop of blood seemed to have left it. He stared wildly and vacantly at his brother, but did not comprehend his words. His ear caught only the last.
"Where?"
"First of all, leave these reception-rooms, which are accessible to so many. Come, I entreat you!"
Leo rose mechanically; he stared around vacantly as if he did not recognize the familiar rooms, and did not know where he was, but as his eyes fell upon the door leading to his mother's study, a shudder passed over him.
"Where is Wanda?" he at length asked.
"In her room; do you wish to see her?"
"No; she would repel me with aversion and contempt. I can endure no more."
He leaned heavily against the chair; his usually clear, joyous voice was hollow and broken. That scene with his mother had completely unmanned him.
"Leo," said Waldemar, remorsefully, "if you had not enraged me so, I should have broken the news to you more gently; but that fatal word, 'renegade,' exasperated me beyond endurance."
"You are avenged; my mother has hurled it back at me. In her eyes I am a traitor and a renegade. I was forced to hear her and to be--silent."
There was something ominous in the rigid, unnatural composure of this fiery, passionate youth, whose whole nature seemed to have undergone a transformation within the last half-hour.
"Follow me!" urged Waldemar. "You must conceal yourself in the castle."
"No; I shall go immediately to W----. I must know what has become of my uncle and his men."
"In heaven's name, do not make the foolhardy attempt to cross the boundary in broad daylight. It would be deliberate suicide."
"I must," persisted Leo. "I know the place where passage is still possible. If I found the way this morning, I shall be able to do so again."
"I tell you that it is impossible. This morning our guards were strengthened, we have now three lines of outposts. Our men have orders to shoot every one who does not know the password. In any event, you will be too late; the conflict at W---- has already been decided."
"No matter!" cried Leo, recovering from his prostration, and breaking out into the wildest despair. "There will be a light somewhere yet,--one fight, at least, and that is all I need. Ah, you do not know what my mother's terrible words have done for me! She is fully conscious that if I am responsible for the overthrow of my soldiers, I must bear the curse and torment of my crime, and she ought to pity me; but instead of that--O my God! she is still my mother, and I have been her all!"
Waldemar trembled before this outburst of agony. "Let me call Wanda," he said; "she will--"
"She will follow my mother's example. You do not know our Polish women, and therefore"--a sort of grim triumph broke through the young soldier's despair--"therefore hope nothing from them! Wanda will never be your wife, not even after my death,--not if she dies of her love for you. You are the enemy of her people, you take sides with the oppressors of her country. This pronounces your sentence. No Polish maiden will ever become your bride. And it is well that it is so," he added, breathing more freely; "I could not die in peace, knowing that she was in your arms. Now I can die content,--she is lost to you, as well as to me."
He was hurrying away, but he paused suddenly as if rooted to the floor. For some moments he seemed to hesitate, then he went slowly and timidly to the door leading into his mother's study.
"Mother!"
All within was quiet; there was not a sign of life.
"I wish to bid you good-bye."
No answer.
"Mother!" The young man's voice faltered in agonized, heart-rending supplication. "Do not let me leave you in this way. If I cannot see you, give me one parting word--one only. It will be the last. Do you not hear me, mother?"
He fell upon his knees, and pressed his forehead against the bolted door, as if it must open to him. In vain. The door remained closed, and no sound came from within. The mother had no farewell for her son, the Princess Zulieski had no word of forgiveness for his offence.
Leo rose from his knees. His face was still rigid and colorless, but around the quivering lips and in the bloodshot eyes there was an expression of wild, intense, unutterable agony. He did not speak another word, he silently took up his cloak, threw it around his shoulders, and approached the door. His brother vainly tried to detain him.
"Let me go!" he cried, pushing Waldemar aside. "Tell Wanda--no, tell her nothing. She does not love me, she has discarded me for you. Farewell!"
He rushed away. For some moments Waldemar stood gazing after him, entirely bewildered and helpless. Then collecting his thoughts, prompted by a sudden resolution, he hastened to his mother's room. He found Paul standing at the vestibule. The old man was in great trouble at the terrible tidings he had just heard,--at the sudden departure of the young prince, who had rushed past him without a word.
"Paul," said Waldemar, "follow Prince Zulieski at once; he is rushing on to certain death. He intends to cross the boundary by daylight."
"God in Heaven!" ejaculated the old man.
"I cannot restrain him," continued Waldemar, "and I dare not aid him openly,--that would only augment his danger; but in his present desperate mood, some person must accompany him. You ride well; take a horse at once. The prince is on foot; you can overtake him before he reaches the boundary. You know the route he will take, and the place where he will attempt to cross. It is the spot where secret communication is still kept up with the insurgents, and cannot be far from the house of my border-forester."
Paul did not reply; he did not dare confirm the truth, and he had not the courage to deny it. Waldemar understood his silence.
"The strictest watch is kept at that very place,--so I hear from our officers. I do not know how my brother succeeded in passing through this morning; he cannot do it again. Hurry after him, Paul. He must not attempt to cross there. Let him try any other place, but not that. He must wait until night; he can conceal himself in the forester's house. Fellner has charge there now; he sides with me, but he will not in any event betray Leo. Hasten!"
Paul needed no urging. Intense anxiety for his young master would be sure to hurry him away.
"I shall be ready in five minutes," he said; "and I shall ride as if my life were at stake."
A few minutes after, he rode swiftly out of the yard. Waldemar, who gazed after him, breathed more freely. "This was the only resource left me," he thought. "Paul may yet overtake my brother, and save him from almost certain death."
Four, five hours passed, bringing no tidings of Leo. Communication--usually so frequent between the frontier and Villica, which was on the direct route to L----, seemed broken off to-day. Waldemar paced his room restlessly, trying to take Paul's long absence as a good omen. He must surely have overtaken Leo, and would remain at his side as far as the boundary. Perhaps both were concealed in the forester's house. At last--it was late in the afternoon--the superintendent entered hastily and unannounced.
"Herr Nordeck, will you come out into the court?" he said; "your presence is very necessary."
"What is the matter?" asked Waldemar. "Has anything happened to the wounded men?"
"O, no," returned Frank; "but I wish you to come yourself. We have tidings from the frontier; a desperate battle was fought at W---- this morning with Count Morynski's corps."
"And how has it resulted?" asked Waldemar, breathlessly.
"The insurgents are defeated, and it is said that they owe this result either to treason or to an unexpected attack. They defended themselves bravely, but were compelled to yield to superior forces. The survivors are scattered, and have fled in every direction."
"And the leader, Count Morynski?"
The superintendent cast down his eyes, and was silent.
"Is he dead?"
"No; but he is severely wounded, and in the hands of the enemy."
Waldemar had always been estranged from his uncle, but he knew how tenderly and passionately Wanda loved her father. If he had fallen in battle, she could have borne it better than to know that he was wounded, suffering, and a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. Who was responsible for the defeat of the corps which should have been protected from an attack in the rear by the detachment of Prince Zulieski?
Waldemar summoned all his self-control. "Who brought you this news?" he asked. "Is it reliable?"
"Paul brought it," replied the superintendent. "He is over yonder--"
"And why does he bring you tidings, when he knows that I have been for hours anxiously awaiting his return? Why does he not come to the castle?"
The superintendent's eyes again sought the floor. "He could not venture--the princess or the young countess might have come to the window; they must be prepared for evil tidings. Paul is not alone, Herr Nordeck--"
"What has happened? My brother--"
"Prince Zulieski has fallen. Paul brings the corpse--"
Waldemar was speechless. A great blow had fallen upon him, depriving him, for the instant, of sense and motion. All was dark around him; for some moments he covered his eyes with his hands, then he roused himself by a powerful effort, and hastened to the superintendent's house. Paul came to meet him, gazing timidly into the face of the man he had been taught to regard as an enemy, but the sorrow depicted there plainly told him that the brother of his young master, weighed down by a sorrow greater even than his own, stood before him. The old man's self-control gave way.
"Our princess!" he wailed, "she will not survive it, neither will the Countess Wanda."
"Did you not overtake the prince?" asked Waldemar.
"Yes," replied Paul, in a faltering voice; "I reached him in season, and gave him your warning. At first he would not listen; he was determined to cross the border at all hazards. He thought the denseness of the forest would protect him. I entreated, I fell upon my knees, and asked if he would allow himself to be shot down like a hunted deer. This at length moved him; he consented to wait until evening. We were just considering whether we could venture to seek admittance to the forest-house, when we were met--"
"By whom? A patrol?"
"No, by the tenant of Janowo, whom we could trust implicitly, as he has always belonged to our party. He told us that there was fighting at W----, that the battle was still in progress, and that the Morynskian corps was struggling desperately and against great odds. Our young prince now lost all reason and discretion; but one idea possessed him,--to reach W----, and plunge into the thick of the fight. We could not restrain him; he would not listen to us. Shortly after he left us, we heard shots; at first there were two in quick succession, then half a dozen all at once, and then--" The old man could not go on; his voice choked, and tears streamed down his cheeks.
"I have brought back his body," he resumed, after a pause. "The colonel who visited you at the castle yesterday gave me permission and assistance. But I dared not take him to the castle. He lies in there."
He pointed to the opposite room. Waldemar entered the chamber of death alone. The last gray beams of the departing day faintly lighted the room and revealed the lifeless form of the young prince. The landlord of Villica stood in silence by his brother's corpse. The handsome face, once glowing with animation and happiness, was rigid and cold; the dark, flashing eyes were closed, and the breast which had swelled so high with dreams, of freedom and a glorious future bore the death-wound. Whatever wrong this fiery, impulsive temperament had committed was now expiated by the blood that welled from his riddled breast, coloring his apparel with dark and fatal stains.
Only a few hours before, all the passions of youth had stormed within this lifeless frame,--hatred and love, jealousy and revenge, despair over the deed he had unwittingly committed and its frightful consequences. Now all was over, chilled in the icy repose of death. Yet upon that still, white face was stamped, as if for all eternity, that expression of bitter agony which had quivered around the lips of the son when his mother refused him a last adieu, when she let him go from her bolted door without her forgiveness, without one parting word. All else had vanished with life, but the young prince had taken this anguish with him, even into the throes of dissolution: the veil of the tomb itself would not hide it.
Waldemar left the room speechless and sad as he had entered it. As he approached those who were awaiting him without, his pallid face and trembling voice attested that he had loved his brother.
"Bring the body to the castle," he said; "I will go on before, and break the tidings to my mother."
The Polish insurrection of 1863-4, whose events have already passed into history, was subdued; tranquillity reigned throughout the conquered province, but it was the tranquillity of desolation. Those wintry March days of a year ago, which had brought such calamity to the main actors in our story, had also witnessed the downfall of a nation's cause and crushed out the last hope of national freedom from the hearts of a brave, patriotic people. Russia, aided by Prussia and with the connivance of Austria, had trampled out the last embers of the revolution. The overthrow of Count Morynski's corps had been the turning-point of the revolt on the German frontier. From that moment the course of the revolution in Prussian Poland was downward.
The loss of Count Morynski, who was by far the ablest revolutionary leader in this province, and the death of Leo Zulieski, whose name and family traditions gave so much prestige to the patriot cause, were heavy blows for a faction already rent by internal discord and rivalry. Now and then the waning star, which was destined so soon to go out in utter darkness, flamed up anew; there were still battles and skirmishes animated by the courage of despair and signalized by heroic deeds; but the fact became more and more apparent that the cause for which Poland was fighting was a lost cause. The revolt, which had at first extended over the whole country, became pent up within ever-narrowing limits; one post after another fell, one division after another was dispersed or disbanded, and the insurrection, which had at first assumed such alarming dimensions, was extinguished even to the last spark. Only desolation and ruin marked the final desperate struggle of a people whose heroism and misfortunes appeal to the sympathies of the civilized world, but which was doomed to such entire defeat and ruin, that the country for which they fought exists no longer as an independent power upon the map of nations.
A long time elapsed ere the fate of Count Morynski was decided. He awoke to consciousness in a prison, and as the surgeons pronounced his wound mortal, no legal proceedings could be instituted against him. For many months he hovered between life and death, and upon his partial recovery he was condemned to execution. A revolutionary leader taken in arms upon the battle-field could expect no other fate. Severe illness alone prevented the immediate carrying out of his sentence; upon his final recovery the revolt was quelled, the rebel army annihilated, and the victors could afford to be magnanimous. His sentence was commuted to life-long banishment to one of the remotest provinces of Siberia,--a questionable act of clemency to a man whose whole existence had been one long aspiration for freedom, and whose personal liberty had never known restraint save during his brief period of exile in France.
He had not seen his family since that evening at Villica when he had bidden them adieu for the battlefield. Neither his daughter nor his sister was allowed to visit him, his rigid confinement being due to the attempts they had made to liberate him. In one of these ineffectual attempts, Paul, the old, faithful servant of the family, had been shot dead by the prison-guard. The princess and Wanda finding all attempts at rescue unavailing, had been compelled to yield to the inevitable, and leave the unhappy man to his fate.
The princess, immediately after the death of her younger son, went to live at Radowicz. It seemed only natural that the bereaved mother and the afflicted daughter should seek each others society; but Waldemar better understood the reason of his mother's departure: he knew that she could not endure the daily presence of the son who had unconsciously defrauded the other and dearer one of Wanda's love, who had goaded him on to that rash deed which led to his untimely death and to the defeat of the cause so near her heart. He knew also that his manner of ruling Villica wounded and exasperated his mother; he had seized the reins with an iron grasp, and he would not let go his hold. No sooner had the outside revolt, which had so deeply implicated his estates, been suppressed, than he set about a thorough reorganization of Villica, bringing everything under his own personal control, and holding all his subordinates to a strict account, after he had summarily dismissed those who refused to obey his commands. His aim was to create a new order of things from the ruins of the old; and although the task was a herculean one, he was equal to it. His tenants soon learned to recognize the controlling hand of the master and to yield to it; revolt upon his estates ended with the departure of the princess and the downfall of the revolution.
Superintendent Frank, at the young landlord's earnest solicitation, concluded to remain a year longer at Villica, but when affairs there were settled upon a secure basis, he carried out his long-cherished purpose and bought an estate of his own, a pleasant and well-ordered manor in another province. In two months he would take possession.
At Gretchen's marriage, her father had given her a dowry far surpassing even Assessor Hubert's selfish anticipations. The marriage had taken place in October, and the newly-wedded pair lived in J----, where Professor Fabian had entered upon the duties of his new position, and where he was meeting with very flattering success. He soon overcame his morbid fear of publicity, and fully justified the expectations he had raised as author of "The History of Ancient Germany." His modest and amiable disposition, so unlike the offensive egotism of his predecessor, won him general favor; and his handsome young wife, who was enabled by her father's generosity to make his home elegant and attractive, knew how to do the honors of her house and to maintain her husband's position so worthily, that the Fabians stood socially upon a most agreeable and enviable plane. They had not visited the old home since their marriage, but they were expected there in a few days.
Assessor Hubert had meantime suffered much from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and yet many would have considered his lot an enviable one, Professor Schwarz having died unmarried, and left him a considerable fortune. But what availed pecuniary independence, when the young lady he had chosen out of all the world, and upon whose hand he had counted with such assurance, belonged to another; when he had not reached the goal of his life-long ambition, the post of government counsellor? In spite of his untiring zeal and his laudable efforts to serve the state, he met with the most atrocious treatment. The state, far from appreciating his ability, self-sacrifice and devotion, seemed to incline to Superintendent Frank's opinion, that Assessor Hubert went on perpetrating one blunder after another, and was really unfit for the public service.
In truth, Hubert was so palpably slighted in every official promotion, that his colleagues began to jeer at him, and his aspiring soul, wounded to its depths, formed a grim resolve to leave the police department of L---- to its own destruction. His uncle's legacy placed him above pecuniary want, why should he longer endure unappreciation and neglect; why submit to non-advancement? Why longer serve a thankless government which persistently refused to recognize his brilliant qualities, while it appointed commonplace men like Doctor Fabian to the highest positions, and conferred the most honorable distinctions upon them?
The more Hubert thought upon the wrongs and slights he had endured, the deeper became his indignation; at length it carried him so far that he went to the governor and hinted at resigning. To his great chagrin the hint was received eagerly and without one word of protest. He was declared wise in laying aside the cares and fatigues of active service now that he had no need of its pecuniary rewards, and the governor added that he really was rather too nervous and excitable to perform the duties of an office which required both courage and self-control.
As Hubert went forth from this interview to draw up his formal resignation, he felt a touch of his renowned uncle's misanthropy and contempt for the world. The resignation was sent in and actually accepted. When it took effect, to Hubert's great surprise the state and police departments were not dissolved, and the world went on as usual! The ex-assessor had only imitated his uncle's stupid man[oe]uvre, like him anticipating the direst consequences; but in neither case did the expected catastrophe arrive.
Waldemar, reined up his horse before the main entrance to Radowicz. His visits here was brief and infrequent; the breach between himself and his nearest relatives would not close, and recent events had widened it still more.
Waldemar's visit was to Wanda alone, and in a few moments the two sat side by side. The young girl was greatly changed; she had always been pale, but her face had never before been deathly white and colorless as now, when it bore the imprint of deep suffering. Leo's fate, her father's imprisonment, and the downfall of her people's cause, weighed heavily upon her heart. She knew that her father was ill and perhaps near death, but she could not see him for one brief moment, and she knew also that the hope of national freedom, for which he had perilled his life, was extinguished forever. The anguish of separation, the oscillation between hope and fear, the excitement and suspense attending these abortive attempts at liberation, had all left their traces upon her face. Wanda was one of those natures which contend against the most cruel misfortunes with unabated ardor while a gleam of hope remains, but which succumb powerlessly when the gleam is extinguished. It was evident that she had now reached that point; for the moment her manner betrayed a feverish excitement, a summoning of her last waning energies.
Waldemar had risen, and stood before the young girl stern and almost defiant. His manner was half angry, half imploring, and his voice expressed both exasperation and sorrow.
"For the last time I entreat you to abandon this idea," he said; "you will only forfeit your own life without aiding your father in the least; you will rather enhance his misery. You wish to accompany him to that frightful desert, to that climate which proves fatal even to the most robust; you, who from infancy have been indulged and petted, and surrounded by every comfort and luxury, would subject yourself to the bitterest privations. Your father's iron constitution may, perhaps, endure what would kill you in a few months. Ask your physician, question the present state of your health, and both will give answer that you cannot live there a year."
"Neither can my father live there," replied Wanda, in a tremulous voice; "but we are both indifferent to life, and we can die together."
"AndI?" asked Waldemar, in a reproachful tone.
She turned away without answering.
"AndI?" he reiterated, still more emphatically. "What will become of me?"
"You at least are free, and life is still before you. Endure it manfully; my burden is incomparably heavier than yours."
Waldemar was on the point of giving way to an outburst of passion, but a glance at that pale, sorrow-stricken face restrained him.
"Wanda," he said, calmly, "a year ago, when our hearts at last understood each other, we declared our mutual love. I should have won you from Leo at all hazards, but fate willed otherwise; his death removed that barrier. By Leo's new-made grave, at a time when the sword hung hourly suspended over your father's head, I did not venture to speak to you of love and marriage. I saw you only for a few moments at a time and at long intervals. You and my mother made me feel, whenever I visited Radowicz, that you still regarded me as an enemy; but I hoped for better things in the future, and now you meet me with this insane resolve, against which I will contend to my last breath: 'We will die together.' This is easily said, and also easily done, if, like Leo, one can die instantly, pierced through the heart by a bullet. Have you a clear conception of what death in banishment really is? It is a slow decline, a lingering struggle against privations which break down the mind long before they destroy the body. To languish far from home, to be cut off from the world and its interests, to be deprived of those intellectual and social enjoyments which are vital to you as the air you breathe, to be crushed and stifled under a load of misery,--this is exile. Do you ask my consent to your voluntary acceptance of such a destiny?"
The young girl shuddered. She felt the truth of Waldemar's description, but she remained silent.
"And will your father accept this incredible sacrifice?" continued the young man, still more excitedly. "Will my mother permit it? O, yes! They want to tear you from my arms, and if they can only do that, they will not hesitate to consign you to a living grave. If I had fallen in Leo's stead, your father would have commanded you to remain, and my mother would have kept you back for him. Now they have persuaded you into this idea of martyrdom; they know it will bring you certain death, but it will make your union with me impossible, and that is just what they want."
"Cease these bitter reproaches!" interposed Wanda. "You wrong my family; no one has persuaded me, this is my own resolution. My father stands upon the threshold of age; wounds, imprisonment, and, above all, defeat, have prostrated him mentally and physically. I am the only one left him, the last tie which binds him to life. I belong to him. The frightful picture you have drawn depictshislot. Do you believe that I could enjoy a moment's peace at your side, knowing that my father had gone forth alone to confront that destiny, knowing that I had caused him the last and bitterest pang of his life by marrying a man he considers an enemy? My only solace in that merciless decree of exile is the permission to accompany my father. I knew that the conflict with you would be a hard one; I have just learned how terrible it is. Spare me, Waldemar; I have not much strength left!"
"O, no, not much for me!" cried Waldemar, bitterly; "whatever strength you have belongs to your father. I was a fool to trust that outburst of emotion which, in a moment of supreme danger, threw you into my arms. My mother is right: your national prejudices are your life's blood; you imbibed them in infancy, you can resign them only with life itself. You will sacrifice yourself and me to these prejudices; to them your father will sacrifice his only child. If your lover belonged to his own nation, he would never allow you to accompany him into exile. Do you Poles know only hatred, even beyond death and the grave?"
"If my father were free," said Wanda, in a broken voice, "I might have the courage to defy him, and what you call our national prejudices, for your sake. Now I can not, and I will not, for it would be treason to my filial duty. I shall go with my father even at the cost of my life; I will not leave him alone in his adversity."
The firmness with which she uttered these words convinced Waldemar that her resolution was not to be shaken, and he ceased opposing it. "When do you leave?" he asked, after a long pause.
"Next month. My aunt will accompany me to O----, and there we shall meet my father. Some weeks are left us; our final parting need not be to-day. But promise me that you will not come again until the last moment. I need all my courage for the farewell hour, and your despair takes it from me. We shall meet once more; until then, good-bye."
"Good-bye," Waldemar replied, curtly, almost roughly, without looking at her or taking her proffered hand.
"Waldemar," said the young girl, appealingly, and with an accent of reproachful tenderness in her voice; but it was lost upon the stern man, who was excited almost to frenzy. Rage and anguish at the thought of losing his beloved outweighed every appeal to his sense of right.
"I cannot be reconciled to this sacrifice," he said, sternly; "my whole nature rebels against it; but, as you insist upon it, I must prove equal to my fate. You know that I cannot indulge in idle lamentations, and as my remonstrances and reproaches wound you deeply, I had best keep silence. Farewell, Wanda."
Wanda lingered for a few moments as if in violent conflict with herself, but she dared not give utterance to the emotions that swelled her heart almost to bursting. "Farewell, Waldemar," she said softly, and left the room.
The lover made no effort to detain her; he stood vacantly gazing out of a window. Many conflicting emotions struggled for mastery in his features, but among them all there was no trace of the renunciation his loved one had demanded of him. He remained for a long time with his face pressed against the panes, not looking up until his name was spoken.
The princess had entered unobserved. How heavily the terrible events of the past year had fallen upon this woman! Her bearing was still erect and firm, and at the first glance no striking change was noticeable in her appearance, but closer scrutiny revealed what Leo's death had cost his mother. Her features wore a quiet, rigid composure, which was the result neither of self-control nor resignation, but rather of enforced submission; it was the expression of one who has nothing more to hope for or to lose,--whose life has been bereft of every interest and charm. The once brilliant eyes were lustreless, the once smooth brow was deeply furrowed, the dark hair was flecked with gray. The blow to the maternal pride of the princess had been a mortal one, and had wrought a change in her whole nature; the defeat of her countrymen, and the fate of the brother whom she loved next to Leo, had prostrated the remaining strength of this resolute woman.
"Have you been torturing Wanda again?" she asked. Her voice, too, had changed; it had a hollow, broken sound. "You know it is useless."
"Yes, it is useless," replied Waldemar, turning around and gazing at his mother. His face was still clouded; he had not overcome his vexation.
"I told you so. Wanda is not one of those women who say no to-day and throw themselves into your arms to-morrow. When she once forms a resolution, it is irrevocable. You ought to recognize this fact, but you will not; you keep forcing her back into the useless conflict. You deal unsparingly with her. I can not and will not attempt to keep Wanda back, and you ought not. She is her father's only child, his all; in accompanying him, she only fulfils a daughter's duty."
"To die in exile," interposed Waldemar.
"Death has of late come near us so often that we no longer fear it," replied the princess. "Those to whom fate has dealt blows so merciless must learn to endure the worst that may happen. Wanda has learned this lesson. We have nothing more to lose, and therefore nothing more to fear. This fatal year has ruined more and brighter hopes than yours; you, too, must submit to the overthrow of your happiness."
"You would never forgive me if I should wrest my happiness from the ruin of your hopes," returned Waldemar, bitterly. "You need have no fear. I have learned to-day that Wanda cannot be influenced; she remains steadfast in her refusal."
"And you?"
"Well--I submit."
The mother scanned her son closely. "What do you intend to do?" she asked.
"Nothing. I have just told you so. I resign all hope, and submit to the inevitable."
The mother's eyes still rested upon his face. "You do not submit," she said. "I know my son better. Is it submission that I see written upon your brow? You harbor some scheme, some rash, dangerous venture. Take care! It is Wanda's own will that opposes you; she will yield to no compulsion, not even from you."
"We shall see!" rejoined the young man, coldly. "However, you need feel no concern. I may have some dangerous scheme in view, but it will affect me alone, and imperil only my own life."
"Do you speak of imperilling your life with an idea that this will console your mother?"
"Forgive me. I thought you would not care for my peril, now that you have lost your Leo."
The mother cast down her eyes. "From the hour of Leo's death you have made me feel myself indeed childless," she said.
"I?" ejaculated Waldemar. "Ought I to have insisted upon your sharing my home at Villica? I knew that you sought only to flee from my presence, that the sight of me was a torture you could not endure. Mother," he added, with deep emotion, "when you stood in such terrible agony by my brother's corpse, I did not venture to speak one word of consolation. I shall speak no such word to-day. Your heart has never found room for me; I have always been an alien and an outcast. I come to Radowicz because I could not live without seeing Wanda. I have sought you in this time of sorrow as little as you have sought me, but I shall not bear the blame of the estrangement between us; do not accuse me of deserting you in the bitterest hour of your life."
The mother had listened without interrupting her son, but now she answered, with quivering lips, "If I loved your brother more than I loved you, I have been forced to lose him, and to lose him in the most cruel manner. I sent him forth to battle for his country, and I could have borne his death if it had come at his post, or in the thick of the conflict, but to have him fall ingloriously--" Her voice faltered, she struggled for breath, and several moments passed ere she could go on:--
"I let my Leo go from me without one word of forgiveness, without that last farewell which he implored upon his knees, and that same day he was laid lifeless at my feet. His memory--all that remains to me of him--is linked eternally with that ill-fated deed which brought ruin upon my countrymen. My people's cause is lost, my brother goes forth to meet a destiny worse than death; Wanda is to accompany him, and I shall be left entirely alone. One would suppose, Waldemar, that you had been fully avenged."
The hollow voice and rigid glance of the woman were more touching than the most violent outburst of anguish. Waldemar could not resist their might; he bent over his mother, and said, significantly,--
"Mother, Count Morynski is still in his own country, and Wanda is also here. To-day she unwittingly showed me a way in which I may yet win her. I shall attempt it."
The princess was startled; she gazed anxiously at her son, and read his purpose in his face.
"Will you attempt--"
"What you have attempted. You failed--I may succeed."
A gleam of hope lighted that pale, sad face, but it instantly died out; the princess shook her head doubtingly.
"No, no," she cried; "do not undertake a rescue, it will be in vain. When I tell you this, you may rest assured that everything possible has been attempted, but without success. Paul's fidelity cost him his life."
"Paul was an old man," rejoined Waldemar; "he was too moderate and cautious. He had courage enough, but he lacked coolness and daring at the decisive moment. Youth, nerve, and above all prompt action, are needed for such a mission."
"And with all these it is full of danger. We have learned how the boundaries are watched and the prisoners guarded. Waldemar, must I lose you also?" cried the princess, in a tone of anguish and alarm.
Waldemar gazed at his mother in astonishment; his face flushed, and then grew pale, as he heard her words.
"I make the stake for your brother's freedom," he said.
"Bronislaw cannot be rescued," was the despondent answer. "Do not risk your life for our lost cause. It has already cost us sacrifice enough. Think of Leo's fall, and of Paul's fate. I will not let you go," she cried, seizing his hand and holding it fast. "I was wrong in saying a moment ago that I had nothing more to lose. I now feel that one child is still left me; I will not give up my last, my only one. Do not go, my son; it is your mother who entreats you."
This was a mother's voice and tone, this was a language of the heart such as these lips had never before addressed to Waldemar. The hour had come when this proud, resolute woman saw everything falling in ruins around her, and found herself clinging in despair to the only object fate had left her. The neglected son at last entered into his birthright, but it was not until the grave had closed over his brother.
Any other mother and son would have fallen into each other's arms, and in one outburst of affection sought to forget the long and bitter estrangement. These natures were too stern and reticent. Waldemar did not utter a word, but, for the first time in his life, he pressed his mother's hand to his lips.
"Will you remain?" asked the mother, entreatingly.
"No," he replied, firmly but gently; "I shall go, but I thank you for the words you have spoken. They make the risk far easier for me. You have always regarded me as your enemy because I have not entered into your party plans; I could not do so, I cannot now; but nothing forbids my releasing the count from an inhuman sentence. I will at least make the attempt, and I shall succeed if success is possible. You know the motive that urges me on."
The mother abandoned her opposition. This assurance awakened hope within her own breast.
"And Wanda?" she asked.
"Wanda said to me to-day, 'If my father were at liberty, I should have the courage to defy everything for your sake.' Tell her that I hope to remind her of those words some day. Do not question me further, mother. You know that I must act alone, for I only among you all am free from suspicion. You will not hear from me during my absence, for you are under close surveillance, and a message from you would endanger my undertaking. Leave all to me. I must hasten--there is no time to lose. And now, good-bye."
He kissed his mother's hand, and hastened away. She was deeply wounded at her son's hurried farewell; she went to the window, eager for one more parting recognition, but she received none. Waldemar's eyes sought another window. As he rode out of the court his glance was fixed upon Wanda's corner room, as if in that glance lay some magic power to compel from her a farewell greeting. For her sake he was about to enter upon an undertaking beset with dangers, and where Wanda was concerned, his mother and all the world were forgotten.
He saw her once more. She appeared at the window, and Waldemar's face lighted up as if illumined by a sudden burst of sunshine. For a moment their eyes met in a glance more eloquent than words. The young man bowed low, and giving Norman the rein, he dashed away like the wind.
The mother stood gazing after her son. He had not turned to give her one farewell look; she was forgotten. At this thought her soul was for the first time pierced by the same arrow Waldemar had often felt at sight of her partiality for Leo. At this moment the conviction she was still reluctant to admit forced itself upon her: that her eldest son inherited what the youngest had never possessed,--her own indomitable will and energy. She now acknowledged that, in mind and character, Waldemar was blood of her blood.