A Dash .. .. .. For a Throne Part 45

"It has led you into plenty of perils, Minna," I replied.

"But it will lead me out of them again. You have done it already, and I do not care now what happens. It is good to have some one to trust--and, best of all, to be with him." She paused and sighed contentedly, and then exclaimed: "But why don't you say something? I have not done wrong, have I?"

What could I say, if I spoke at all, but turn and tell her that this trust in me was just the sweetest savor that could be put into my life; and that to hear it from her own lips was enough to set every pulse in my body beating fast with my love? But yet I could not speak this until I had told her all from my side; and so I gripped the bridle rein the tighter and plodded on through the moonlight, keeping my face resolutely turned from her lest the sight of her beauty and the knowledge of her trust should burst the last bonds of my self-restraint.

"No, you have done no wrong, Minna; but tell me the rest."

She waited a second, and then continued:

"In the carriage, to-night, the truth came out. Aunt Gratz and he quarrelled, and with a sort of blunt, brutal frankness he blurted out the truth that we were flying from, not to, you, and that he was carrying me away to make me his wife. In his mad rage against you he heaped all kinds of abuse on you, knowing that it made my blood boil. He is a villain."

"He has paid for his treachery by now, probably," I said, and then there came a longer pause.

"Don't you wish to hear any more?" she asked gently, as if anxious to make me speak to her; and when I told her that I was only too eager to hear it all, she went on: "I thought it best to say nothing, but I made up my mind that I would slip away and seek any one's help rather than stay with them. My great thought was to get back to the house at Landsberg; and I sat as if prostrated with grief and waited, watching for a chance. It came at last, at a town where we stopped to change horses, and he got out of the carriage. There was some delay; and I saw him enter the house. Aunt Gratz was half dead with fatigue, and lay back in the carriage and fell asleep. I opened the door on my side very softly and slipped out, without disturbing her, and then ran off in the thick dusk for my life. I was soon missed, of course, and should not have escaped had it not been that there was a wagon standing not far away, though out of sight of those in the carriage. There was no one in it, and I jumped in and hid myself among some hay and sacks that lay in the bottom. I lay concealed there a long time and heard the hue and cry raised, and people searching for me, though no one thought to look in the wagon. Presently the wagoner came, and we started off at a slow pace. I let him go on for a few miles, and then to his intense astonishment I rose up suddenly from among the sacks and told him I would give him money if he would take me toward Landsberg."

"Poor Minna! What an experience for you."

"I did not care then, for I was free from that man. The wagoner was a good fellow and, though I did not know it, we had been coming in this direction, and he set me down about a mile from here, where his road turned off. I walked on to be frightened again, but this time--by you; and then to feel safe, oh, so safe, again."

"You did splendidly!" I cried warmly; for her pluck and resource had been admirable. And then I walked on in silence thinking how best I could commence my confession.

"Can you hear sounds of any one coming?" she asked.

I stopped the horse directly and stood listening. Turning my head, I glanced in her face and saw a smile there.

"I hear nothing; do you?" I asked.

"No. I didn't expect to. I----" She stopped.

"You what?"

"I've seen nothing but the back of your head for two miles, I should think, at the least. And I thought perhaps the horse might need a rest."

It was a little act of coquetry after all.

"He must be a sorry beast if he tires in carrying such a burden," said I, smiling. "But we have come half the distance, I think. You haven't much farther to go. Aren't you tired?"

I was standing close to the saddle, and she looked down into my face without speaking for a while. Then she said:

"I was thinking--cousin."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I WAS THINKING--COUSIN."]

The pause before the use of the word and the emphasis upon it told me she had more than her usual meaning.

"I can guess your thought, I believe," I said.

"Well?"

"You were wondering whether you are right still to call me cousin."

"I don't believe what they told me," she replied quickly, for I had guessed her thought.

"What did they tell you? No; I won't ask that either. I will tell you freely all that has to be told."

I paused an instant, and suddenly the clean, clear moonlight which flooded everything so brilliantly seemed to turn chill and fear-laden for me.

The horse moved restlessly, striking the ground harshly with his fore hoof. I stroked his neck to quiet him and left my hand on the crest of it.

"Well?" The question was asked softly and gently.

"It is hard to tell it," I answered in a low and rather unsteady voice.

"To me? Are you afraid of me?" and I felt a hand placed on mine.

"It is hard to speak words that may divide us--but I have deceived you.

I am not your cousin. I am not the Prince."

I felt the fingers on mine start and tighten for a second, and then close in a warm, trustful pressure.

"Can I make the telling easier for you? I had made up my mind that that was so; but the rest? Who are you? Don't tell me unless you wish. I trust you none the less. You remember I told you days ago--how long it seems--you had a secret and that I saw it. Now I know part of it; and I am glad of the knowledge--not glad that you are not my cousin Hans; glad only that you have told me. But I am eager for the unknown part."

I could not beat down my feelings to speak coolly; so I waited to fight for my self-control.

"They told me only one thing that should be hard for you to tell me--and that I know was untrue," she continued, as if it were a pleasure to bare her heart to me. "That you were not true to me, but seeking to betray me. I would have laughed at the absurdity if the malignity of such a slander had not maddened me."

"No, I have been no traitor to you," I answered readily. "That I can declare from my soul. But I have kept this knowledge from you. Even that I would not have done but that I could not see how else I could go on helping you. I could do nothing unless men thought I was the Prince."

"Yet you could have trusted me," she said, with a gentle sigh of reproach.

"Had I told you, I could no longer have remained at the castle. It was not that I did not trust you--indeed, I longed to tell you, not only that but all the rest."

"The rest?" she repeated softly in a low voice that trembled; and again I felt her fingers on mine start.

"Yes. The secret at which even you did not guess. I can judge pretty much what these people have told you--that I am an adventurer and an ex-play-actor. There is a secret behind that which I have not shared with a single soul on earth; but I will tell you."

Then I told her plainly of my meeting with von Fromberg, the mistake under which I was first taken to Gramberg, and the chain of circ.u.mstances which had kept me from breaking silence as to my ident.i.ty and had seemed to drive me into accepting the part that had been thrust upon me.

I did not dwell too strongly upon the one motive that had influenced me--the wish to save her from the plot against her safety. But she was quick to read it all; and maybe her feelings for me prompted her to give it exaggerated importance.

She listened almost in silence, merely asking a question here and there when some point was not clear, and at the close she sat thoughtful, and said sweetly:

"It means a great loss to me--and yet perhaps a greater gain."

I looked up with a question in my eyes.

"I have lost my cousin, it seems--surely the truest cousin that ever a woman had; but then I have gained a friend whose stanchness must be even greater than my cousin's, for there was no claim of kinship to motive his sacrifices for me. But, cousin or friend, you are still----" She did not finish the sentence.