By Wit of Woman Part 54

"I will gladly revise my opinion if you will give me occasion."

"I told you you were not so sharp as you thought. If you were, and if there is what I suppose there is behind those words of yours just now, you would see that I might be as anxious as yourself for Gareth--if only I could see the way."

"I should be glad to think it--for her sake."

"You can. It's true. And if you could see a way I'd forgive you all the rest."

"I have no more to say--to you," I said, rising.

"You are going to tell him?"

"Yes--now. There is no good in delay."

He got up, frowning, his face anxious but resolute. "No; this is my affair. You have done enough mischief. Send him to me. I'll tell him."

"I will not have violence in my house."

He came close to me and stared into my eyes. "Do you know what Colonel Katona can do in this?"

"I know he has sworn to have the life of the man who has wronged his child."

He waved this aside with a shake of the head and a toss of the hand.

"Is that all you know?"

"Yes--but it is enough."

"I will tell him myself. Not alone if you say so. Karl can hear it too."

"You had better go to them. You will of course tell him everything.

If you do not, I shall."

"You don't understand. This is beyond you now. I shall tell him one thing which you have been too prejudiced and blind to see--that Gareth is already my wife, legally--as you like to insist."

"I don't believe you--nor will he."

"Believe it or not as you please--it is true; if a priest of the Holy Church can make man and woman husband and wife."

He swung away with that, and I watched him cross the hall with quick, firm steps, and enter the room where Colonel Katona and Karl were waiting.

I was glad to be spared the ordeal of that interview, and was still standing thoughtfully at the closed door on the other side of which that scene of the drama was being enacted, when a carriage drove up rapidly.

I knew it was General von Erlanger and the Duke, and I told the servant to show them into one of the larger rooms in the front of the house.

CHAPTER XXVII

"THIS IS GARETH"

I was in the act of going to the Duke and my fingers were all but on the handle of the door, when I recalled the idea which had flashed upon me an hour before when with Gareth, and instantly I resolved to act upon it.

Running back into the room where I had been with Count Gustav, I wrote two lines to his Excellency.

"I have made one mistake. Count Gustav's marriage is legal. Gareth is really his wife. Let the Duke know this."

I sent James Perry in with this note to the General and a message that I would be with him in one minute.

Then I ran up to Gareth. The poor child was sick from the suspense; but I noticed with intense satisfaction that she had been filling up some of the weary time of waiting by making herself look as pretty as possible.

"Is he here, Christabel? Oh, how my heart beats."

"Yes, dear, he is here. He is with your father now, telling him all; and you are to come with me to the Duke." I put it so intentionally, that she might believe Gustav had expressed the wish.

"What do we not owe you, Christabel?" she cried, kissing me tenderly.

"But I'd rather see Kar--Gustav, first. I've been practising that name ever since you left me; but it sounds so strange. The other will come out first."

"Try and remember it with the Duke, Gareth. It doesn't matter with any one else so much."

"Oh, I can't go to him. I can't. He is such a stern and terrible old man, so--Gustav says. I got it nearly right that, time, didn't I?" and she laughed.

"It will soon come quite naturally, dear. Are you ready? He may not like it if we keep him waiting."

I looked at her critically, gave a touch or two to her fair hair, and kissed her. "You look very beautiful, Gareth."

"I feel very frightened," she said, and clung to me as we went down the stairs. I believe I was almost as nervous as she could have been; for I was indeed drawing a bow at a venture. But I dared not let her guess my feelings, lest she should run back upstairs.

So I took her hand and pushed on steadily, and when James opened the door of the room I led her right across to where the Duke sat, and, with my heart thumping against my ribs I said, just as I had thought to say:

"This is Gareth, Duke Ladislas."

His bird-like face was as black as a night-storm. His keen eyes watched us both, glancing swiftly from my face to Gareth's, and from her back to me as we hurried across the room. The heavy brows were pent, and when we stood in front of him there came an ominous pause--like the calm when the storm is to burst.

Gareth was so frightened by this reception that the clutch of her fingers tightened on mine. I felt her trembling and saw her colour go, as she flinched with a little gasping catch of the breath all eloquent of fear.

His Excellency had risen at our entrance, and I saw him stare with a start of astonishment at Gareth, and from her to the stern old Duke; and then he lowered his head and closed his eyes, and I noticed that he clenched his right hand. He feared as much as I did for the result of my experiment.

The silence was almost intolerable; those vulture eyes fixed with deadly intentness upon us both, and the hard unyielding face set in the stern, cold, impa.s.sive, expressionless scrutiny.

Bitterly I began to repent my rashness, when a great change came, wrought by Gareth.

With surely one of the happiest instincts that ever came to a child, half helpless as she was with fright, she slipped her fingers from mine and, throwing herself on her knees at the Duke's feet, she caught his hand and held it and looked up frankly in his face and cried:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Throwing herself on her knees at the Duke's feet."]

"It was all my fault, sir. I pray G.o.d and you to forgive him."

Just that; no more. No tears, no wailings, no hysterics. Just the frank statement of what her pure, innocent, simple heart believed to be the truth--the whole truth as it seemed to her; as no one looking down into her eyes could doubt.