Chapter II: Part 2

“But--but he is not to be locked up?” I faltered, almost in a whisper.

“Well, no--not exactly that; but I am to post a sentry in the corridor, outside his door.”

“Then the King is afraid that Monsieur Maurice will run away!”

“I don't know--I suppose so,” groaned my father.

I sat silent for a moment, and then burst into a flood of tears.

“Poor Monsieur Maurice!” I cried. “He has coughed so all the Winter; and he was longing for the Spring! We were to have gathered primroses in the woods when the warm days came back again--and--and--and I suppose the King doesn't mean that I am not to speak to him any more!”

My sobs choked me, and I could say no more.

My father took me on his knee, and tried to comfort me.

“Don't cry, my little Gretchen,” he said tenderly; “don't cry! Tears can help neither the prisoner nor thee.”

“But I may go to him all the same, father?” I pleaded.

“By my sword, I don't know,” stammered my father. “If it were a breach of orders ... and yet for a baby like thee ... thou'rt no more than a mouse about the room, after all!”

“I have read of a poor prisoner who broke his heart because the gaoler killed a spider he loved,” said I, through my tears.

My father's features relaxed into a smile.

“But do you flatter yourself that Monsieur Maurice loves my little Mädchen as much as that poor prisoner loved his spider?” he said, taking me by the ear.

“Of course he does--and a hundred thousand times better!” I exclaimed, not without a touch of indignation.

My father laughed outright.

“Thunder and Mars!” said he, “is the case so serious? Then Monsieur Maurice, I suppose, must be allowed sometimes to see his little pet spider.”

He took me up himself next morning to the prisoner's room, and then for the first time I found a sentry in occupation of the corridor. He grounded his musket and saluted as we passed.

“I bring you a visitor, Monsieur Maurice,” said my father.

He was leaning over the fire in a moody attitude when we went in, with his arms on the chimney-piece, but turned at the first sound of my father's voice.

“Colonel Bernhard,” he said, with a look of glad surprise, “this is kind, I--I had scarcely dared to hope”....

He said no more, but took me by both hands, and kissed me on the forehead.

“I trust I'm not doing wrong,” said my father gruffly. “I hope it's not a breach of orders.”

“I am sure it is not,” replied Monsieur Maurice, still holding my hands. “Were your instructions twice as strict, they could not be supposed to apply to this little maiden.”

“They are strict enough, Monsieur Maurice,” said my father, drily.

A faint flush rose to the prisoner's cheek.

“I know it,” he said. “And they are as unnecessary as they are strict. I had given you my parole, Colonel Bernhard.”

My father pulled at his moustache, and looked uncomfortable.

“I'm sure you would have kept it, Monsieur Maurice,” he said.

Monsieur Maurice bowed.

“I wish it, however, to be distinctly understood,” he said, “that I withdrew that parole from the moment when a sentry was stationed at my door.”

“Naturally--naturally.”

“And, for my papers”....

“I wish to heaven they had said nothing about them!” interrupted my father, impatiently.

“Thanks. 'Tis a petty tyranny; but it cannot be helped. Since, however, you are instructed to seize them, here they are. They contain neither political nor private matter--as you will see.”

“I shall see nothing of the kind, Monsieur Maurice,” said my father. “I would not read a line of them for a marshal's bâton. The King must make a gaoler of me, if it so pleases him; but not a spy. I shall seal up the papers and send them to Berlin.”

“And I shall never see my manuscript again!” said Monsieur Maurice, with a sigh. “Well--it was my first attempt at authorship--perhaps, my last--and there is an end to it!”

My father ground some new and tremendous oath between his teeth.

“I hate to take it, Monsieur Maurice,” he said. “'Tis an odious office.”

“The office alone is yours, Colonel Bernhard,” said the prisoner, with all a Frenchman's grace. “The odium rests with those who impose it on you.”

Hereupon they exchanged formal salutations; and my father, having warned me not to be late for our mid-day meal, put the papers in his pocket, and left me to take my daily French lesson.

7

The Winter lingered long, but the Spring came at last in a burst of sunshine. The grey mists were rent away, as if by magic. The cold hues vanished from the landscape. The earth became all freshness; the air all warmth; the sky all light. The hedgerows caught a tint of tender green. The crocuses came up in a single night. The woods which till now had remained bare and brown, flushed suddenly, as if the coming Summer were imprisoned in their glowing buds. The birds began to try their little voices here and there. Never once, in all the years that have gone by since then, have I seen so startling a transition. It was as if the Prince in the dear old fairy tale had just kissed the Sleeping Beauty, and all that enchanted world had sprung into life at the meeting of their lips.

But the Spring, with its sudden beauty and brightness, seems to have no charm for Monsieur Maurice. He has permission to walk in the grounds twice a week--with a sentry at his heels; but of that permission he sternly refuses to take advantage. It was not wonderful that he preferred his fireside and his books, while the sleet, and snow, and bitter east winds lasted; but it seems too cruel that he should stay there now, cutting himself off from all the warmth and sweetness of the opening season. In vain I come to him with my hands full of dewy crocuses. In vain I hang about him, pleading for just a turn or two on the terrace where the sunshine falls hottest. He shakes his head, and is immoveable.

“No, petite,” he says. “Not to-day.”

“That is just what you said yesterday, Monsieur Maurice.”

“And it is just what I shall say to-morrow, Gretchen, if you ask me again.”

“But you won't stay in for ever, Monsieur Maurice!”

“Nay--'for ever' is a big word, little Gretchen.”

“I don't believe you know how brightly the sun is shining!” I say coaxingly. “Just come to the window, and see.”

Unwillingly enough, he lets himself be dragged across the room--unwillingly he looks out upon the glittering slopes and budding avenues beyond.

“Yes, yes--I see it,” he replies with an impatient sigh; “but the shadow of that fellow in the corridor would hide the brightest sun that ever shone! I am not a galley-slave, that I should walk about with a garde-chiourme behind me.”

“What do you mean, Monsieur Maurice?” I ask, startled by his unusual vehemence.

“I mean that I go free, petite--or not at all.”

“Then--then you will fall ill!” I falter, amid fast-gathering tears.

“No, no--not I, Gretchen. What can have put that idea into your wise little head?”

“It was papa, Monsieur Maurice ... he said you were”....

Then, thinking suddenly how pale and wasted he had become of late, I hesitated.

“He said I was--What?”

“I--I don't like to tell!”

“But if I insist on being told? Come, Gretchen, I must know what Colonel Bernhard said.”

“He said it was wrong to stay in like this week after week, and month after month. He--he said you were killing yourself by inches, Monsieur Maurice.”

Monsieur Maurice laughed a short bitter laugh.

“Killing myself!” he repeated. “Well, I hope not; for weary as I am of it, I would sooner go on bearing the burden of life than do my enemies the favour of dying out of their way.”

The words, the look, the accent made me tremble. I never forgot them.

How could I forget that Monsieur Maurice had enemies--enemies who longed for his death?

So the first blush of early Spring went by; and the crocuses lived their little life and passed away, and the primroses came in their turn, yellowing every shady nook in the scented woods; and the larches put on their crimson tassels, and the laburnum its mantle of golden fringe, and the almond-tree burst into a leafless bloom of pink--and still Monsieur Maurice, adhering to his resolve, refused to stir one step beyond the threshold of his rooms.

Sad and monotonous now to the last degree, his life dragged heavily on. He wrote no more. He read, or seemed to read, nearly the whole day through; but I often observed that his eyes ceased travelling along the lines, and that sometimes, for an hour and more together, he never turned a page.

“My little Gretchen,” he said to me one day, “you are too much in these close rooms with me, and too little in the open air and sunshine.”

“I had rather be here, Monsieur Maurice,” I replied.

“But it is not good for you. You are losing all your roses.”

“I don't think it is good for me to be out when you are always indoors,” I said, simply. “I don't care to run about, and--and I don't enjoy it.”

He looked at me--opened his lips as if about to speak--then checked himself; walked to the window; and looked out silently.

The next morning, as soon as I made my appearance, he said:--

“The French lesson can wait awhile, petite. Shall we go out for a walk instead?”

I clapped my hands for joy.

“Oh, Monsieur Maurice!” I cried, “are you in earnest?”

For in truth it seemed almost too good to be true. But Monsieur Maurice was in earnest, and we went--closely followed by the sentry.

It was a beautiful, sunny April day. We went down the terraces and slopes; and in and out of the flower-beds, now gaudy with Spring flowers; and on to the great central point whence the three avenues diverged. Here we rested on a bench under a lime-tree, not far from the huge stone basin where the fountain played every Sunday throughout the Summer, and the sleepy water-lilies rocked to and fro in the sunshine.

All was very quiet. A gardener went by now and then, with his wheelbarrow, or a gamekeeper followed by his dogs; a blackbird whistled low in the bushes; a cow-bell tinkled in the far distance; the wood-pigeons murmured softly in the plantations. Other passers-by, other sounds there were none--save when a noisy party of flaxen-haired, bare-footed children came whooping and racing along, but turned suddenly shy and silent at sight of Monsieur Maurice sitting under the lime-tree.

The sentry, meanwhile, took up his position against the pedestal of a mutilated statue close by, and leaned upon his musket.

Monsieur Maurice was at first very silent. Once or twice he closed his eyes, as if listening to the gentle sounds upon the air--once or twice he cast an uneasy glance in the direction of the sentry; but for a long time he scarcely moved or spoke.

At length, as if following up a train of previous thought, he said suddenly:--

“There is no liberty. There are comparative degrees of captivity, and comparative degrees of slavery; but of liberty, our social system knows nothing but the name. That sentry, if you asked him, would tell you that he is free. He pities me, perhaps, for being a prisoner. Yet he is even less free than myself. He is the slave of discipline. He must walk, hold up his head, wear his hair, dress, eat, and sleep according to the will of his superiors. If he disobeys, he is flogged. If he runs away, he is shot. At the present moment, he dares not lose sight of me for his life. I have done him no wrong; yet if I try to escape, it is his duty to shoot me. What is there in my captivity to equal the slavery of his condition? I cannot, it is true, go where I please; but, at least, I am not obliged to walk up and down a certain corridor, or in front of a certain sentry-box, for so many hours a day; and no power on earth could compel me to kill an innocent man who had never harmed me in his life.”

In an instant I had the whole scene before my eyes--Monsieur Maurice flying--pursued--shot down--brought back to die!

“But--but you won't try to run away, Monsieur Maurice!” I cried, terrified at the picture my own fancy had drawn.

He darted a scrutinising glance at me, and said, after a moment's hesitation:--

“If I intended to do so, petite, I should hardly tell Colonel Bernhard's little daughter beforehand. Besides, why should I care now for liberty? What should I do with it? Have I not lost all that made it worth possessing--the Hero I worshipped, the Cause I honoured, the home I loved, the woman I adored? What better place for me than a prison ... unless the grave?”

He roused himself. He had been thinking aloud, unconscious of my presence; but seeing my startled eyes fixed full upon his face, he smiled, and said with a sudden change of voice and manner:--

“Go pluck me that namesake of yours over yonder--the big white Marguerite on the edge of the grass plat. Thanks, petite. Now I'll be sworn you guess what I am going to do with it! No? Well, I am going to question these little sibylline leaves, and make the Marguerite tell me whether I am destined to a prison all the days of my life. What! you never heard of the old flower sortilége? Why, Gretchen, I thought every little German maiden learned it in the cradle with her mother tongue!”

“But how can the Marguerite answer you, Monsieur Maurice?” I exclaimed.

“You shall see--but I must tell you first that the flower is not used to pronounce upon such serious matters. She is the oracle of village lads and lasses--not of grave prisoners like myself.”

And with this, half sadly, half playfully, he began stripping the leaves off one by one, and repeating over and over again:--

“Tell me, sweet Marguerite, shall I be free? Soon--in time--perhaps--never! Soon--in time--perhaps--never! Soon--in time--perhaps--”

It was the last leaf.

“Pshaw!” he said, tossing away the stalk with an impatient laugh. “You could have given me as good an answer as that, little Gretchen. Let us go in.”

8

It was about a week after this when I was startled out of my deepest midnight sleep by a rush of many feet, and a fierce and sudden knocking at my father's bed-room door--the door opposite my own.

I sat up, trembling. A bright blaze gleamed along the threshold, and high above the clamour of tongues outside, I recognised my father's voice, quick, sharp, imperative. Then a door was opened and banged. Then came the rush of feet again--then silence.

It was a strange, wild hubbub; and it had all come, and gone, and was over in less than a minute. But what was it?

Seeing that fiery line along the threshold, I had thought for a moment that the Château was on fire; but the light vanished with those who brought it, and all was darkness again.

“Bertha!” I cried tremulously. “Bertha!”

Now Bertha was my Rhenish hand-maiden, and she slept in a closet opening off my room; but Bertha was as deaf to my voice as one of the Seven Sleepers.

Suddenly a shrill trumpet-call rang out in the courtyard.

I sprang out of bed, flew to Bertha, and shook her with all my strength till she woke.

“Bertha! Bertha!” I cried. “Wake up--strike a light--dress me quickly! I must know what is the matter!”

In vain Bertha yawns, rubs her eyes, protests that I have had a bad dream, and that nothing is the matter. Get up she must; dress herself and me in the twinkling of an eye; and go upon whatsoever dance I choose to lead her.

My father is gone, and his door stands wide open. We turn to the stairs, and a cold wind rushes up in our faces. We go down, and find the side-door that leads to the courtyard unfastened and ajar. There is not a soul in the courtyard. There is not the faintest glimmer of light from the guard-house windows. The sentry who walks perpetually to and fro in front of the gate is not at his post; and the gate is wide open!

Even Bertha sees by this time that something strange is afoot, and stares at me with a face of foolish wonder.

“Ach, Herr Gott!” she cries, clapping her hands together, “what's that?”

It is very faint, very distant; but quite audible in the dead silence of the night. In an instant I know what it is that has happened!

“It is the report of a musket!” I exclaim, seizing her by the hand, and dragging her across the courtyard. “Quick! quick! Oh, Monsieur Maurice! Monsieur Maurice!”

The night is very dark. There is no moon, and the stars, glimmering through a veil of haze, give little light. But we run as recklessly as if it were bright day, past the barracks, past the parade-ground, and round to the great gates on the garden side of the Château. These, however, are closed, and the sentry, standing watchful and motionless, with his musket made ready, refuses to let us through.

In vain I remind him that I am privileged, and that none of these gates are ever closed against me. The man is inexorable.

“No, Fräulein Gretchen,” he says, “I dare not. This is not a fit hour for you to be out. Pray go home.”

“But Gaspar, good Gaspar,” I plead, clinging to the gate with both hands, “tell me if he has escaped! Hark; oh, hark! there it is again!”

And another, and another shot rings through the still night-air.

The sentry almost stamps with impatience.

“Go home, dear little Fräulein! Go home at once,” he says. “There is danger abroad to-night. I cannot leave my post, or I would take you home myself.... Holy Saint Christopher! they are coming this way! Go--go--what would his Excellency the Governor say, if he found you here?”

I see quick gleams of wandering lights among the trees--I hear a distant shout! Then, seized by a sudden panic, I turn and fly, with Bertha at my heels--fly back the way I came, never pausing till I find myself once more at the courtyard gate. Here--breathless, trembling, panting--I stop to listen and look back. All is silent;--as silent as before.

“But, liebe Gretchen,” says Bertha, as breathless as myself, “what is to do to-night?”

There is a coming murmur on the air. There is a red glow reflected on the barrack windows ... they are coming! I turn suddenly cold and giddy.

“Hush, Bertha!” I whisper, “we must not stay here. Papa will be angry! Let us go up to the corridor window.”

So we go back into the house, upstairs the way we came, and station ourselves at the corridor window, which looks into the courtyard.

Slowly the glow broadens; slowly the sound resolves itself into an irregular tramp of many feet and a murmur of many voices.

Then suddenly the courtyard is filled with soldiers and lighted torches, and ... and I clasp my hands over my eyes in an agony of terror, lest the picture I drew a few days since should be coming true.

“What do you see, Bertha?” I falter. “Do you--do you see Monsieur Maurice?”

“No, but I see Gottlieb Kolb, and Corporal Fritz, and ... yes--here is Monsieur Maurice between two soldiers, and his Excellency the Colonel walking beside them!”

I looked up, and my heart gave a leap of gladness. He was not dead--he was not even wounded! He had been pursued and captured; but at least he was safe!

They stopped just under the corridor window. The torchlight fell full upon their faces. Monsieur Maurice looked pale and composed; perhaps just a shade haughtier than usual. My father had his drawn sword in his hand.

“Corporal Fritz,” he said, turning to a soldier near him, “conduct the prisoner to his room, and post two sentries at his door, and one under his windows.” Then turning to Monsieur Maurice, “I thank God, Sir,” he said gravely, “that you have not paid for your imprudence with your life. I have the honour to wish you good night.”

Monsieur Maurice ceremoniously took off his hat.

“Good night, Colonel Bernhard,” he said. “I beg you, however, to remember that I had withdrawn my parole.”

“I remember it, Monsieur Maurice,” replied my father, drawing himself up, and returning the salutation.

Monsieur Maurice then crossed the courtyard with his guards, and entered the Château by the door leading to the state apartments. My father, after standing for a moment as if lost in thought, turned away and went over to the guard-house.

The soldiers then dispersed, or gathered into little knots of twos and threes, and talked in low voices of the events of the night.

“Accomplices!” said one, just close against the window where Bertha and I still lingered. “Liebe Mutter! I'll take my oath he had one! Why, it was I who first caught sight of the prisoner gliding through the trees--I saw him as plainly as I see you now--I covered him with my musket--I wouldn't have given a copper pfennig for his life, when paff! at the very moment I pulled the trigger, out steps a fellow from behind my shoulder, knocks up my musket, and disappears like a flash of lightning--Heaven only knows where, for I never laid eyes on him again!”

“What was he like?” asks another soldier, incredulously.

“Like? How should I know? It was as dark as pitch. I just caught a glimpse of him in the flash of the powder--an ugly, brown-looking devil he seemed! but he was gone in a breath, and I had no time to look for him.”

The soldiers round about burst out laughing.

“Hold, Karl!” says one, slapping him boisterously on the shoulder. “You are a good shot, but you missed aim for once. No need to conjure up a brown devil to account for that, old comrade!”

Karl, finding his story discredited, retorted angrily; and a quarrel was fast brewing, when the sergeant on guard came up and ordered the men to their several quarters.

“Holy Saint Bridget!” said Bertha, shivering, “how cold it is! and there, I declare, is the Convent clock striking half after one! Liebe Gretchen, you really must go to bed--what would your father say?”

So we both crept back to bed. Bertha was asleep again almost before she had laid her head upon her pillow; but I lay awake till dawn of day.

9

It was in my father's disposition to be both strict and indulgent--that is to say, as a father he was all tenderness, and as a soldier all discipline. His men both loved and feared him; but I, who never had cause to fear him in my life, loved him with all my heart, and never thought of him except as the fondest of parents. Chiefly, perhaps, for my sake, he had up to this time been extremely indulgent in all that regarded Monsieur Maurice. Now, however, he conceived that it was his duty to be indulgent no longer. He was responsible for the person of Monsieur Maurice, and Monsieur Maurice had attempted to escape; from this moment, therefore, Monsieur Maurice must be guarded, hedged in, isolated, like any other prisoner under similar circumstances--at all events until further instructions should arrive from Berlin. So my father, as it was his duty to do, wrote straightway to the Minister of War, doubled all previous precautions, and forbade me to go near the prisoner's rooms on any pretext whatever.

I neither coaxed nor pleaded. I had an instinctive feeling that the thing was inevitable, and that I had nothing to do but to suffer and obey. And I did suffer bitterly. Day after day, I hung about the terraces under his windows, watching for the glimpse that hardly ever came. Night after night I sobbed till I was tired, and fell asleep with his name upon my lips. It was a childish grief; but not therefore the less poignant. It was a childish love, too; necessarily transient and irrational, as such childish passions are; but not therefore the less real. The dull web of my later life has not been without its one golden thread of romance (alas! how long since tarnished!), but not even that dream has left a deeper scar upon my memory than did the hero-worship of my first youth. It was something more than love; it was adoration. To be with him was measureless content--to be banished from him was something akin to despair.

So Monsieur Maurice and his little Gretchen were parted. No more happy French lessons--no more walks--no more stories told by the firelight in the gloaming! All was over; all was blank. But for how long? Surely not for ever!

“Perhaps the king will think fit to hand him over to some other gaoler,” said my father one day; “and, by Heaven! I'd thank him more heartily for that boon than for the order of the Red Eagle!”

My heart sank at the thought. Many and many a time had I pictured to myself what it would be if he were set at liberty, and with what mingled joy and grief I should bid him good-bye; but it had never occurred to me as a possibility that he might be transferred to another prison-house.

Thus a week--ten days--a fortnight went by, and still there came nothing from Berlin. I began to hope at last that nothing would come, and that matters would settle down in time, and be as they were before. But of such vain hopes I was speedily and roughly disabused; and in this wise.

It was a gloomy afternoon--one of those dun-coloured afternoons that seem all the more dismal for coming in the midst of Spring. I had been out of the way somewhere (wandering to and fro, I believe, like a dreary little ghost, among the grim galleries of the state apartments), and was going home at dusk to be in readiness for my father, who always came in after the afternoon parade. Coming up the passage out of which our rooms opened, I heard voices--my father's and another. Concluding that he had Corporal Fritz with him, I went in unhesitatingly. To my surprise, I found the lamp lighted, and a strange officer sitting face to face with my father at the table.

The stranger was in the act of speaking; my father listening, with a grave, intent look upon his face.

... “and if he had been shot, Colonel Bernhard, the State would have been well rid of a troublesome burden.”

My father saw me in the doorway, put up his hand with a warning gesture, and said hastily:--

“You here, Gretchen! Go into the dining-room, my child, till I send for you.”

The dining-room, as I have said elsewhere, opened out of the sitting-room which also served for my father's bureau. I had therefore to cross the room, and so caught a full view of the stranger's face. He was a sallow, dark man, with iron grey hair cut close to his head, a hard mouth, a cold grey eye, and a deep furrow between his brows. He wore a blue military frock buttoned to the chin; and a plain cocked hat lay beside his gloves upon the table.

I went into the dining-room and closed the door. It was half-door, half-window, the upper panels being made of ground glass, so as to let in a borrowed light; for the little room was at all times somewhat of the darkest. Such as it was, this borrowed light was now all I had; for the dining-room fire had gone out hours ago, and though there were candles on the chimney-piece, I had no means of lighting them. So I groped my way to the first chair I could find, and waited my father's summons.

“And if he had been shot, Colonel Bernhard, the State would have been well rid of a troublesome burden.”

It was all I had heard; but it was enough to set me thinking. “If he had been shot”.... If who had been shot? My fears answered that question but too readily. Who, then, was this new-comer? Was he from Berlin? And if from Berlin, what orders did he bring? A vague terror of coming evil fell upon me. I trembled--I held my breath. I tried to hear what was being said, but in vain. The voices in the next room went on in a low incessant murmur; but of that murmur I could not distinguish a word.

Then the sounds swelled a little, as if the speakers were becoming more earnest. And then, forgetting all I had ever heard or been taught about the heinousness of eavesdropping, I got up very softly and crept close against the door.

“That is to say, you dislike the responsibility, Colonel Bernhard.”

These were the first words I heard.

“I dislike the office,” said my father, bluntly. “I'd almost as soon be a hangman as a gaoler.”

The stranger here said something that my ear failed to catch. Then my father spoke again.

“To tell you the truth, Herr Count, I only wish it would please His Excellency to transfer him elsewhere.”

The stranger paused a moment, and then said in a low but very distinct voice:--

“Supposing, Colonel Bernhard, that you were yourself transferred--shall we say to Königsberg? Would you prefer it to Brühl?”

“Königsberg!” exclaimed my father in a tone of profound amazement.

“The appointment, I believe, is worth six hundred thalers a year more than Brühl,” said the stranger.

“But it has never been offered to me,” said my father, in his simple straightforward way. “Of course I should prefer it--but what of that? And what has Königsberg to do with Monsieur Maurice?”

“Ah, true--Monsieur Maurice! Well, to return then to Monsieur Maurice--how would it be, do you think, somewhat to relax the present vigilance?”

“To relax it?”

“To leave a door or a window unguarded now and then, for instance. In short, to--to provide certain facilities ... you understand?”

“Facilities?” exclaimed my father, incredulously. “Facilities for escape?”

“Well--yes; if you think fit to put it so plainly,” replied the other, with a short little cough, followed by a snap like the opening and shutting of a snuff-box.

“But--but in the name of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, why wait for the man to run away? Why not give him his liberty, and get rid of him pleasantly?”

“Because--ahem!--because, you see, Colonel Bernhard, it would not then be possible to pursue him,” said the stranger, drily.

“To pursue him?”

“Just so--and to shoot him.”

I heard the sound of a chair pushed violently back; and my father's shadow, vague and menacing, started up with him, and fell across the door.

“What?” he shouted, in a terrible voice. “Are you taking me at my word? Are you offering me the hangman's office?”

Then, with a sudden change of tone and manner, he added:--

“But--I must have misunderstood you. It is impossible.”

“We have both altogether misunderstood each other, Colonel Bernhard,” said the stranger, stiffly. “I had supposed you would be willing to serve the State, even at the cost of some violence to your prejudices.”

“Great God! then you did mean it!” said my father, with a strange horror in his voice.

“I meant--to serve the King. I also hoped to advance the interests of Colonel Bernhard,” replied the other, haughtily.

“My sword is the King's--my blood is the King's, to the last drop,” said my father in great agitation; “but my honour--my honour is my own!”

“Enough, Colonel Bernhard; enough. We will drop the subject.”

And again I heard the little dry cough, and the snap of the snuff-box.

A long silence followed, my father walking to and fro with a quick, heavy step; the stranger, apparently, still sitting in his place at the table.

“Should you, on reflection, see cause to take a different view of your duty, Colonel Bernhard,” he said at last, “you have but to say so before....”

“I can never take a different view of it, Herr Count!” interrupted my father, vehemently.

“--before I take my departure in the morning,” continued the other, with studied composure; “in the meanwhile, be pleased to remember that you are answerable for the person of your prisoner. Either he must not escape, or he must not escape with life.”

My father's shadow bent its head.

“And now, with your permission, I will go to my room.”

My father rang the bell, and when Bertha came, bade her light the Count von Rettel to his chamber.

Hearing them leave the room, I opened the door very softly and hesitatingly, scarce knowing whether to come out or not. I saw my father standing with his back towards me and his face still turned in the direction by which they had gone out. I saw him throw up his clenched hands, and shake them wildly above his head.

“And it was for this!--for this!” he said fiercely. “A bribe! God of Heaven! He offered me Königsberg as a bribe! Oh, that I should have lived to be treated as an assassin!”

His voice broke into hoarse sobs. He dropped into a chair--he covered his face with his hands.

He had forgotten that I was in the next room, and now I dared not remind him of my presence. His emotion terrified me. It was the first time I had seen a man shed tears; and this alone, let the man be whom he might, would have seemed terrible to me at any time. How much more terrible when those tears were tears of outraged honour, and when the man who shed them was my father!

I trembled from head to foot. I had an instinctive feeling that I ought not to look upon his agony. I shrank back--closed the door--held my breath, and waited.

Presently the sound of sobbing ceased. Then he sighed heavily twice or thrice--got up abruptly--threw a couple of logs on the fire, and left the room. The next moment I heard him unlock the door under the stairs, and go into the cellar. I seized the opportunity to escape, and stole up to my own room as rapidly and noiselessly as my trembling knees would carry me.

I had my supper with Bertha that evening, and the Count ate at my father's table; but I afterwards learned that, though the Governor of Brühl himself waited ceremoniously upon his guest and served him with his best, he neither broke bread nor drank wine with him.

I saw that unwelcome guest no more. I heard his voice under the window, and the clatter of his horse's hoofs as he rode away in the early morning; but that was long enough before Bertha came to call me.

10

Weeks went by. Spring warmed, and ripened, and blossomed into Summer. Gardens and terraces were ablaze once more with many-coloured flowers; fountains played and sparkled in the sunshine; and travellers bound for Cologne or Bonn put up again at Brühl in the midst of the day's journey, to bait their horses and see the Château on their way.

For in these years just following the Peace of Paris, the Continent was overrun by travellers, two thirds of whom were English. The diligence--the great, top-heavy, lumbering diligence of fifty years ago--used then to come lurching and thundering down the main street five times a week throughout the Summer season; and as many as three and four travelling carriages a day would pass through in fine weather. The landlord of the “Lion d'Or” kept fifty horses in his stables in those days, and drove a thriving trade.

So the Summer came, and brought the stir of outer life into the precincts of our sleepy Château; but brought no better change in the fortunes of Monsieur Maurice. Ever since that fatal night, the terms of his imprisonment had been more rigorous than ever. Till then, he might, if he would, walk twice a week in the grounds with a soldier at his heels; but now he was placed in strict confinement in his own two rooms, with one sentry always pacing the corridor outside his door, and another under his windows. And across each of those windows might now be seen a couple of bright new iron bars, thick as a man's wrist, forged and fixed there by the village blacksmith.

I have no words to tell how the sight of those bars revolted me. If instead of being a little helpless girl, I had been a man like my father, and a servant of the State, I think they would have made a rebel of me.

Worse, however, than iron bars, locked doors, and guarded corridors, was Hartmann--Herr Ludwig Hartmann, as he was styled in the despatch that announced his coming--a pale, slight, silent man, with colourless grey eyes and white eyelashes, who came direct from Berlin about a month later, to act as Monsieur Maurice's “personal attendant.” Stealthy, watchful, secret, civil, he established himself in a room adjoining the prisoner's apartment, and was as much at home in the course of a couple of hours as if he had been settled there from the first.

He brought with him a paper of instructions, and, having on his arrival submitted these instructions to my father, he at once took up a certain routine of duties that never varied. He brushed Monsieur Maurice's clothes, waited upon him at table, attended him in his bed-room, was always within hearing, always on the alert, and haunted the prisoner like his shadow. Not even a housemaid could go in to sweep but he was present. Now the man's perpetual presence was intolerable to Monsieur Maurice. He had borne all else with patience, but this last tyranny was more than he could endure without murmuring. He appealed to my father; but my father, though Governor of Brühl, was powerless to help him. Hartmann had presented his instructions as a minister presents his credentials, and those instructions emanated from Berlin. So the new-comer, valet, gaoler, spy as he was, became an established fact, and was detested throughout the Château--by no one more heartily than myself.

I still, however, saw Monsieur Maurice now and then. My father often took me with him in his rounds, and always when he visited his prisoner. Sometimes, too, he would leave me for an hour with my friend, and call for me again on his way back; so that we were not wholly parted even now. But Hartmann took care never to leave us alone. Before my father's footsteps were out of hearing, he would be in the room; silent, unobtrusive, perfectly civil, but watchful as a lynx. We could not talk before him freely. Nothing was as it used to be. It was better than total banishments; it was better than never hearing his voice; but the constraint was hard to bear, and the pain of these meetings was almost greater than the pleasure.

And now, as I approach that part of my narrative which possesses the deepest interest for myself, I hesitate--hesitate and draw back before the great mystery in which it is involved. I ask myself what interpretation the world will put upon facts for which I can vouch; upon events which I myself witnessed? I cannot prove those events. They happened over fifty years ago; but they are as vividly present to my memory as if they had taken place yesterday. I can only relate them in their order, knowing them to be true, and leaving each reader to judge of them according to his convictions.

It was about the middle of the second week in June. Hartmann had been about six weeks at Brühl, and all was going on in the usual dull routine, when that routine was suddenly broken by the arrival of three mounted dragoons--an officer and two privates--whose errand, whatever it might be, had the effect of throwing the whole establishment into sudden and unwonted confusion.

I was out in the grounds when they arrived, and came back at midday to find no dinner on the table, no cook in the kitchen; but a full-dress parade going on in the courtyard, and all the interior of the Château in a state of wild commotion. Here were peasants bringing in wood, gardeners laden with vegetables and flowers, women running to and fro with baskets full of linen, and all to the accompaniment of such a hammering, bell-ringing, and clattering of tongues as I had never heard before.

I stood bewildered, not knowing what to do, or where to go.

“What is the matter? What has happened? What are you doing?” I asked, first of one and then of another; but they were all too busy to answer.

“Ach, lieber Gott!” said one, “I've no time for talking!”

“Don't ask me, little Fräulein,” said another. “I have eight windows to clean up yonder, and only one pair of hands to do them with!”

“If you want to know what is to do,” said a third impatiently, “you had better come and see.”

The head-gardener's son came by with two pots of magnificent geraniums, one under each arm.

“Where are you going with those flowers, Wilhelm?” I asked, running after him.

“They are for the state salon, Fräulein Gretchen,” he replied, and hurried on.

For the state salon! I ran round to the side of the grand entrance. There were soldiers putting up banners in the hall; others helping to carry furniture up stairs; carpenters with ladders; women with brooms and brushes; and Corporal Fritz bustling hither and thither, giving orders, and seeing after everything.

“But Corporal Fritz!” I exclaimed, “what are all these people about?”

“We are preparing the state apartments, dear little Fräulein,” replied Corporal Fritz, rubbing his hands with an air of great enjoyment.

“But why? For whom?”

“For whom? Why, for the King, to be sure”; and Corporal Fritz clapped his hand to the side of his hat like a loyal soldier. “Don't you know, dear little Fräulein, that His Majesty sleeps here to-night, on his way to Ehrenbreitstein?”

This was news indeed! I ran up stairs--I was all excitement--I got in everybody's way--I tormented everybody with questions. I saw the table being laid in the grand salon where the King was to sup, and the bedstead being put up in the little salon where he was to sleep, and the ante-room being prepared for his officers. All was being made ready as rapidly, and decorated as tastefully, as the scanty resources of the Château would permit. I recognised much of the furniture from the attics above, and this, faded though it was, being helped out with flowers, flags, and greenery, made the great echoing rooms look gay and habitable.

By and by, my father came round to see how the work was going on, and finding me in the midst of it, took me by the hand and led me away.

“You are not wanted here, my little Gretchen,” he said; “and, indeed, all the world is so busy to-day that I scarcely know what to do with thee.”

“Take me to Monsieur Maurice!” I said, coaxingly.

“Ay--so I will,” said my father; “with him, at all events, you will be out of the way.”

So he took me round to Monsieur Maurice's rooms, and told me as we went along that the King had only given him six hours' notice, and that in order to furnish his Majesty's bed and his Majesty's supper, he had bought up all the poultry and eggs, and borrowed well-nigh all the silver, glass, and linen in the town.

By this time we were almost at Monsieur Maurice's door. A sudden thought flashed upon me. I pulled him back, out of the sentry's hearing.

“Oh, father!” I cried eagerly, “will you not ask the King to let Monsieur Maurice free?”

My father shook his head.

“Nay,” he said, “I must not do that, my little Mädchen. And look you--not a word that the King is coming here to-night. It would only make the prisoner restless, and could avail nothing. Promise me to be silent.”

So I promised, and he left me at the door without going in.

I spent all the afternoon with Monsieur Maurice. He divided his luncheon with me; he gave me a French lesson, he told me stories. I had not had such a happy day for months. Hartmann, it is true, was constantly in and out of the room, but even Hartmann was less in the way than usual. He seemed absent and preoccupied, and was therefore not so watchful as at other times. In the meanwhile I could still hear, though faintly, the noises in the rooms below; but all became quiet about five o'clock in the evening, and Monsieur Maurice, who had been told they were only cleaning the state apartments, asked no questions.

Meanwhile the afternoon waned, and the sun bent westward, and still no one came to fetch me away. My father knew where I was; Bertha was probably too busy to think about me; and I was only too glad to stay as long as Monsieur Maurice was willing to keep me. By and by, about half-past six o'clock, the sky became overclouded, and we heard a low muttering of very distant thunder. At seven, it rained heavily.

Now it was Monsieur Maurice's custom to dine late, and ours to dine early; but then, as his luncheon hour corresponded with our dinner-hour, and his dinner fell only a little later than our supper, it came to much the same thing, and did not therefore seem strange. So it happened that just as the storm came up, Hartmann began to prepare the table. Then, in the midst of the rain and the wind, my quick ear caught a sound of drums and bugles, and I knew the King was come. Monsieur Maurice evidently heard nothing; but I could see by Hartmann's face (he was laying the cloth and making a noise with the glasses) that he knew all, and was listening.

After this I heard no more. The wind raved; the rain pattered; the gloom thickened; and at half-past seven, when the soup was brought to table, it was so dark that Monsieur Maurice called for lights. He would not, however, allow the curtains to be drawn. He liked, he said, to sit and watch the storm.

A cover was laid for me at his right hand; but my supper hour was past, and what with the storm without, the heaviness in the air, and the excitement of the day, I was no longer hungry. So, having eaten a little soup and sipped some wine from Monsieur Maurice's glass, I went and curled myself up in an easy chair close to the window, and watched the driving mists as they swept across the park, and the tossing of the treetops against the sky.

It was a wild evening, lit by lurid gleams and openings in the clouds; and it seemed all the wilder by contrast with the quiet room and the dim radiance of the wax lights on the table. There was a soft halo round each little flame, and a dreamy haze in the atmosphere, from the midst of which Monsieur Maurice's pale face stood out against the shadowy background, like a head in a Dutch painting.

We were both very silent; partly because Hartmann was waiting, and partly, perhaps, because we had been talking all the afternoon. Monsieur Maurice ate slowly, and there were long intervals between the courses, during which he leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, looking across towards the window and the storm. Hartmann, meanwhile, seemed to be always listening. I could see that he was holding his breath, and trying to catch every faint echo from below.

It was a long, long dinner, and probably seemed all the longer to me because I did not partake of it. As for Monsieur Maurice, he tasted some dishes, and sent more away untouched.

“I think it is getting lighter,” he said by and by. “Does it still rain?”

“Yes,” I replied; “it is coming down steadily.”

“We must open the window presently,” he said. “I love the fresh smell that comes with the rain.”

Here the conversation dropped again, and Hartmann, having been gone for a moment, came back with a dish of stewed fruit.

Then, for the first time, I observed there was a second attendant in the room.

“Will you not have some raspberries, Gretchen?” said Monsieur Maurice.

I shook my head. I was too much startled by the sight of the strange man, to answer him in words.

Who could he be? Where had he come from? He was standing behind Monsieur Maurice, far back in the gloom, near the door--a small, dark man, apparently; but so placed with regard to the table and the lights, that it was impossible to make out his features with distinctness.

Monsieur Maurice just tasted the raspberries and sent his plate away.

“How heavy the air of the room is!” he said. “Give me some Seltzer-water, and open that farthest window.”

Hartmann reversed the order. He opened the window first; and as he did so, I saw that his hand shook upon the hasp, and that his face was deadly pale.

He then turned to the sideboard and opened a stone bottle that had been standing there since the beginning of dinner. He filled a tumbler with the sparkling water.

At the moment when he placed this tumbler on the salver--at the moment when he handed it to Monsieur Maurice--the other man glided quickly forward. I saw his bright eyes and his brown face in the full light. I saw _two hands_ put out to take the glass; a brown hand and a white--his hand, and the hand of Monsieur Maurice. I saw--yes, before Heaven! as I live to remember and record it, I saw the brown hand grasp the tumbler and dash it to the ground!

“Pshaw!” said Monsieur Maurice, brushing the Seltzer-water impatiently from his sleeve, “how came you to upset it?”

But Hartmann, livid and trembling, stood speechless, staring at the door.

“It was the other man!” said I, starting up with a strange kind of breathless terror upon me. “He threw it on the ground--I saw him do it--where is he gone? what has become of him?”

“The other man! What other man?” said Monsieur Maurice. “My little Gretchen, you are dreaming.”

“No, no, I am not dreaming. There was another man--a brown man! Hartmann saw him--”

“A brown man!” echoed Monsieur Maurice. Then catching sight of Hartmann's face, he pushed his chair back, looked at him steadily and sternly; and said, with a sudden change of voice and manner:--

“There is something wrong here. What does it mean? You saw a man--both of you? What was he like?”

“A brown man,” I said again. “A brown man with bright eyes.”

“And you?” said Monsieur Maurice, turning to Hartmann.

“I--I thought I saw something,” stammered the attendant, with a violent effort at composure. “But it was nothing.”

Monsieur Maurice looked at him as if he would look him through; got up, still looking at him; went to the sideboard, and, still looking at him, filled another tumbler with Seltzer-water.

“Drink that,” he said, very quietly.

The man's lips moved, but he uttered never a word.

“Drink that,” said Monsieur Maurice for the second time, and more sternly.

But Hartmann, instead of drinking it, instead of answering, threw up his hands in a wild way, and rushed out of the room.

Monsieur Maurice stood for a moment absorbed in thought; then wrote some words upon a card, and gave the card into my hand.

“For thy father, little one,” he said. “Give it to no one but himself, and give it to him the first moment thou seest him. There's matter of life and death in it.”

11

How the King supped, how the King slept, and what he thought of his Château of Augustenburg which he now saw for the first time, are matters respecting which I have no information. I only know that I had fallen asleep on Monsieur Maurice's sofa when Bertha came at ten o'clock that night to fetch me home; that I was very drowsy and unwilling to be moved; and that I woke in the morning dreaming of a brown man with bright eyes, and calling upon Monsieur Maurice to make haste and come before he should again have time to vanish away.

It was a lovely morning; bright and fresh, and sunshiny after the night's storm. My first thought was of Monsieur Maurice, and the card he had entrusted to my keeping. I had it still. My father was not at home when I came back last night. He was in attendance on the King, and did not return till long after I was asleep in my own little bed. This morning, early as I awoke, he was gone again, on the same duty.