A Dash .. .. .. For a Throne Part 7

This was intended to see if I should exercise my authority.

"You will not leave, Captain von Krugen," I replied promptly. "Heaven knows there is too much need of a faithful friend at such a juncture."

He bowed, and his eyes lighted with pleasure at my words. "And now,"

I added, "we will discuss together what has to be done, and try to settle the arrangements."

There were, of course, many arrangements to be made, and the consultation occupied a long time. As a result I issued a number of directions such as seemed best, including those for the funeral, which I fixed for three days later.

Then I had to consider my own matters, and to mature a plan which I had formed after my interview with the Countess Minna. I felt that I could not continue the deception in regard to myself; and I resolved that I would use the interval before the funeral to try and find the real von Fromberg, and bring him to the castle to take his own position. I would come with him, and, by using the knowledge I possessed, help him in a task which, if he had a spark of honor in his nature, he could not but undertake.

The next day I took the captain so far into my confidence as to tell him there was an urgent private matter to which I was compelled to attend, and that I must return to Hamnel for that purpose. I told him to keep the fact of my absence as secret as possible, saying merely that I was out riding or walking, and that I would return soon. If the countess asked for me, he was in confidence to tell her the truth, and to a.s.sure her that, in any event, I should be back before the day of the funeral.

Moreover, he was to keep a most vigilant watch over everything and everybody, and if my presence was urgently needed to telegraph to me to Hamnel. But to no one was he to give that address.

I started early, and the same evening arrived at Hamnel, but failed to find von Fromberg either in his own name or in mine; and theft I hurried on to Charmes. There I caught him at the house of the Compte de Charmes, whose daughter, Angele, he was to marry.

At first he was like an emotional girl. He rushed into the room, and would have embraced me had I not prevented him, while he loaded me with thanks and praise for having helped him to get free from his uncle by not declaring myself; while, with all this, he was profuse and gushingly voluble with his apologies.

He acted like an hysterical fool, bubbling over with silly laughter one moment and shedding equally silly tears the next. He was ridiculously light-spirited and happy, until his fantastic hilarity angered me. He appeared to think that, as he had become a Frenchman, he ought to behave as a sort of feather-headed clown.

His one consuming wish was that I should see Angele--the girl was the one object in his mental outlook at that moment, and everything else was all out of perspective.

It was a long time before I could make him understand that a much more serious matter than his love-farce had brought me to Charmes; and even while I compelled him to listen to the position of affairs at the castle, and the plight of his cousin there, I could see that his thoughts were away out of the room with his Angele.

"I am sorry for her, poor soul. I am sure I would have every one happy at a time like this. But I suppose it will be all settled somehow and some day," he said at the close, in a tone which made me fully realize that he considered it no business of his.

"There is a train that starts from Charmes in an hour and a half," said I, thinking it best to a.s.sume that he would go back with me. "We can catch by that a fairly good connection at Strasburg, and can reach the castle to-morrow."

"You are going back, then?" he queried.

"I think I can be of help to you."

"How can you help me if you are going there?"

"You will wish, of course, to hasten to the castle to save the honor of your family and of your cousin?"

"My family is here. My home is France. I am no longer a German. I have made the declaration to become naturalized. Do you think I would leave Angele on almost the eve of my wedding-day? To-morrow we shall be man and wife. Shall I instead, then, go to look after the affairs of a dead old man who never worried himself the paring of a nail about me until he thought I could be of use to him? What do you suppose Angele's father would say? Pouf! I can hear him. 'Very well, monsieur, go away. Attend to these people--these Germans--leave my daughter. Show yourself more German than French, and give the lie to your protestations. Pretend to become a Frenchman one moment and the next recognize the claim of your Fatherland and your German blood and kinship. Go, by all means, but do not return. Never set eyes on Angele again!' Eh, do you think I could do that?" and he threw up his hands, shoulders, and eyebrows in a perfect ecstasy of repudiation of the mere idea.

"A helpless young girl, your only kin in the world, is waiting there dependent upon your a.s.sistance. You are now the head of that great family whose honor and future are now threatened; and the entire fortunes of your n.o.ble house are at a crisis which make it imperative in all honor that you should a.s.sume the responsibilities of the position."

"And is there not a helpless girl here who will be dependent upon me? Am I not here taking the headship of a n.o.ble family? With this difference--that here I was not forgotten and ignored until I became necessary as a prop for a tottering wall. Would honor, think you, have nothing to say against my desertion of this family in the way you suggest? No, no, my friend; these people have appealed to your sentimental side. My place is here, and here I stop."

From that resolve no pleas, reproaches, arguments, or goads could move him. Nothing should make him budge from Angele; and he viewed everything from that one new standpoint.

"If you are eager to free my family from the mess their affairs have got into, take my place, go back and do it. You may claim by right all there is to be got; for certainly I could not help if I would. If he who was all his life at this work could not keep his house from falling, his son from being killed, and his daughter from danger, what can I hope to do?--I, a student, who have lived three-quarters of my life in France, who loathe a military life, and know absolutely nothing of the intricacies of diplomatic intrigue? You say you could help me? I don't know how; but if you could, what is the gain for me? My uncle is dead and leaves me nothing but a mess of intrigue and danger. My cousin is engaged and therefore will marry--and what is her husband to me?"

"Surely you are not dead to the demands of honor?" I cried; but against the wall of his selfishness the sea would have broken itself in vain.

"How do I serve my honor by forsaking Angele? No, no. I tell you I have ceased to be a German; I have renounced my family, and shall live under a new name. I am a student. This is work for men like you. Go and do it.

I am rendering that girl a far greater service by sending you than by going myself."

It was useless to argue with him. He was hopelessly callous; and I sat biting my lips in anxious thought.

"When they know I have become a Frenchman, do you think they will accept help at my hands? Will they welcome my French wife, or my new family?

Should I wreck my own happiness to enable them to insult me, and all that are now dear to me? Am I a fool? I will do what I can, but not that. If my cousin should need a home, she shall have as comfortable a one as my means will provide. But they must not claim me as one of their own kin. That is all."

"They are not likely to make any claim of the kind on you," I said. And the bitter contempt I felt for him came out in my tone.

He winced and flushed, and for a moment was stung to anger; but it pa.s.sed.

"You think poorly of me because I have decided matters thus. As you will. We shall not meet again. Probably I shall never again cross the frontier. To show you my decision is no mere whim, but a deliberately chosen course, here I have a duly drawn up declaration renouncing my heirship. I drew it, of course, before I knew of the Prince's death, and I declined absolutely his proposals, and announced my intention to change my name and become a Frenchman. I was going to have this attested before a notary, and then send it to my uncle; but you can take it as it is, if you like. I will make a sworn declaration at any time it is desired. Do just what you will. And this I swear to you: I will never breathe a word of what has pa.s.sed unless you wish me to speak. I owe you that for having brought you into the mess."

I took the paper and rose to leave.

"I will take means to let you know what is done. Here, I suppose?"

I spoke curtly, for I felt strongly.

"I do not wish to hear anything. A letter here will find me, of course, but my name for the future will be Henri Frombe--Hans von Fromberg will have ceased to exist, unless you are he." So indifferent was he to the critical seriousness of the affair that he laughed as he said this, and added: "After all, then, you will not see Angele. I am grieved at that,"

and he held out his hand.

"I cannot take your hand, M. Frombe," I said sternly. "I remain a German. Your desertion of your family at such a juncture of need makes any friendly feeling toward you impossible on my part. You hold that any man can lightly renounce his family and country. I do not. I take the strongest view of your conduct. France profits little by her newest citizen, and the Fatherland gains by the loss of so self-satisfied a renegade. I trust that we shall not meet again."

He was a coward, and shrank and paled under the lash of my words; but he made no attempt to resent them, and I left him with a feeling of bitter contempt and disgust at his conduct.

During the whole of my long journey back to the castle I sat absorbed in close thought, mapping out my plans, recalling old memories, and rousing my wits and energies for the task which Fate had set me, and from which apparently I could not break away.

CHAPTER V

THE SCENT OF TREACHERY

When I reached the castle, Captain von Krugen met me with several stories about steps which von Nauheim had taken to contest my authority.

Orders I had given had been countermanded, and several arrangements changed. These things were small in themselves, but as his object was evidently to fight my influence and dispute my authority, I deemed it best to put my foot down at once.

I sent for all to whom the contradictory instructions had been given, and then requested von Nauheim's presence. At first he would not come, and then I sent the captain to tell him exactly what I meant to do, and that if he did not come every man and woman in the place would be warned to take no orders from him under pain of instant dismissal. Von Krugen carried the message with glee, and it roused the count to such anger that he came at once in a fury. Without giving him time to speak, I said:

"I sent for you, Count von Nauheim, because these good people here are in some difficulty as to where they are to look for orders. Will you explain to them that, although the Prince has left his fortune to his daughter, the castle pa.s.ses to me with the headship of the house, and that, as at times like these there can be only one master, they must take their orders from me, and that where any instructions clash with mine they must be referred to me?"

He eyed me angrily, but could not dispute what I implied.

"I am no mouthpiece for you," he answered sullenly. "I have been accustomed to control matters here, for an obvious reason known to every one, that I have the honor to be the Countess Minna's affianced husband.

What object, then, have you for any change?"

"Will you tell them what I have said, or will you compel me to issue peremptory orders, and cancel openly what you have done?" I asked in a quick, resolute tone, but low enough to be heard only by him.

"If you dare to humiliate me in that way----" he began.