Under a Charm Volume Iii Part 6

Leo rose in the same mechanical way. He looked round the salon with a strange expression, as if the familiar place were unknown to him, and he were trying to recall where he was; but as his eye fell upon the closed door of his mother's study, he shuddered.

"Where is Wanda?" he asked at length.

"In her room. Do you wish to see her?"

The young Prince shook his head. "No. She, too, would repulse me with horror and contempt. I don't care to go through it again."

He leaned heavily on the chair; his voice, usually so clear in its youthful freshness, sounded faint and exhausted. It was plain that the scene he had gone through with his mother had completely shattered him.

"Leo," said Waldemar, earnestly, "if you had not exasperated me so terribly, I should not have told you the news in that abrupt way. You drove me beyond bounds with that fatal word."

"Be satisfied; my mother has given it me back. It is I who am the traitor--the coward. I had to listen and be silent."

There was something most unnatural in this rigid, dull calm, contrasting so strongly with the young man's usual fiery impetuosity.

That one half-hour seemed to have altered his whole nature.

"Follow me," urged Waldemar. "For the present you must remain at the Castle."

"No, I shall go over to W---- at once. I must know what has become of my uncle and the rest."

"For G.o.d's sake, do nothing so rash," exclaimed the elder brother, in great alarm. "What, you would be mad enough to cross the frontier now, in broad daylight? It would be neither more nor less than suicide."

"I must," persisted Leo. "I know the place where I can cross. I found the way this morning, and I can find it a second time."

"And I tell you, you cannot get across. The sentinels on our side have been doubled since the morning, and over the border there is a treble line to pa.s.s. Orders are out to shoot down any one who does not give the watchword--and, in any case, you would arrive too late. At W---- the fate of the day has been decided long ere this."

"No matter," broke out Leo, suddenly pa.s.sing from his torpor to a state of wildest desperation. "There will still be some fighting--one other encounter, and I want no more. If you knew how my mother has maddened me with her fearful words! She must feel that if my men have been lost through fault of mine, I shall have to bear all the curse, the h.e.l.l of knowing it. She should have been merciful, instead of ... Oh, G.o.d! Yet she is my mother, and for so long I have been all in all to her!"

Waldemar stood by, deeply moved at this outbreak of grief. "I will call Wanda," he said at last. "She will ..."

"She will do the same. You do not know the women of our people. But, for that very reason"--a sort of gloomy triumph gleamed through the young Prince's despair--"for that very reason, you need hope nothing from them. Wanda will never be yours, never, even though she could step over my dead body to you, though she may love you, and die of her love. You are the enemy of her people. You help in the work of oppression--that will decide your sentence with her. No Polish woman will be your wife--and it is well that it is so," he went on, with a deep-drawn sigh. "I could not have died in peace with the thought of leaving her in your arms; now I am at ease on that point. She is lost to you as to me."

He would have hurried away, but suddenly stopped, as though a spell had fallen on him. For a second he seemed to waver, then he went slowly, hesitatingly, to the door which led to the Princess's study.

"Mother!"

All was still within.

"I wanted to say good-bye to you."

No answer.

"Mother!" The young Prince's voice shook in its eager, heart-rending entreaty. "Do not let me go from you thus. If I may not see you, say at least one word--one single word of farewell. It will be the last.

Mother, do you not hear me?"

He was kneeling before the barred door, pressing his brow against it, as though it must open to him. In vain; the door remained close, and no sound was heard within. The mother had no parting word for her son; the Princess Baratowska no pardon for his error.

Leo rose from his knees. His face was rigid again now, only about his lips there quivered an expression of wild and bitter anguish, such as never in his young life could he have experienced before. He spoke no word, but silently took up the cloak which he had cast aside on his entrance, threw it round his shoulders, and went to the door. His brother attempted to hold him back. Leo thrust him aside.

"Let me go. Tell Wanda--no, tell her nothing. She does not love me; she has given me up for you. Good-bye."

He rushed away. Waldemar stood a few minutes in utmost perplexity, doubtful as to what course he should adopt. At last he seemed to have taken a resolution. He pa.s.sed quickly through the adjoining room, to the Princess's ante-chamber. There he found the house-steward, Pawlick, with a troubled, anxious face. Directly the old man had heard of the arrival of his sick countrymen, he had hurried to them, and had been the first to hear the terrible news. On returning to the Castle, debating in his own mind as to how he should communicate it to his mistress, he suddenly beheld Prince Baratowski, standing before him at the entrance. Leo gave the alarmed old servitor no time to unburthen himself, but merely pa.s.sed him with a hasty inquiry for his brother, for Countess Morynska, and disappeared in his mother's apartments.

Pawlick could not tell whether his young master were informed of the late events or not; but when, some time later, the unhappy boy rushed past him unheedingly, one look at his face was sufficient to show him he knew all.

"Pawlick," said Waldemar, coming in, "you must follow Prince Baratowski immediately. He is about to commit an act of the maddest rashness, which will cost him his life, if he really carries out his project. He means to cross the frontier, now, in daylight."

"G.o.d forbid!" exclaimed the old man, horrified.

"I cannot keep him back," continued Nordeck, "and I dare not show myself at his side. That would only increase his danger; yet, in his present frame of mind, he must have some one with him. I know you have still a good seat in the saddle, in spite of your years. The Prince is on foot. You will be able to come up with him before he reaches the frontier, for you know the direction he will take--the place whence the secret communication with the insurgents is kept up. I fear it is in the neighbourhood of the border-station."

Pawlick did not reply. He dared not answer in the affirmative, but at this moment courage to deny the truth failed him. Waldemar understood his silence.

"It is just about there that the most vigilant watch is kept," he cried, hastily. "I heard it from our officers. How my brother contrived to get through this morning, I know not. He will not succeed a second time. Hasten after him, Pawlick. He must not attempt to cross there; anywhere else rather than there! He must wait--conceal himself until dusk, in the forester's station itself, if there is no other way.

Inspector Fellner is there; he is on my side, but he will never betray Leo. Hasten!"

He had no need to speak so urgently. Mortal anxiety on his young master's account was depicted on the old man's face.

"In ten minutes I shall be ready," said he. "I'll ride as though for my own life."

He kept his word. Barely ten minutes later he rode out of the Castle yard. Waldemar, who was standing watching at the window above, drew a breath of relief.

"That was the only thing to be done. He may perhaps reach him even yet; and so, at all events, the worst will be averted."

Four, five hours elapsed, and yet no tidings. Generally, when there was work astir on the frontier, messages came fast and frequent. All the couriers on their way to L----, pa.s.sing through Wilicza, would halt in the village with their news, for a few minutes, at least. To-day these communications seemed suddenly cut off. Waldemar paced uneasily up and down his room, trying to think of Pawlick's prolonged absence as a favourable sign. The old man had certainly come up with Leo, and would stay by him so long as the young Prince remained on German soil.

Perhaps they were both lying in hiding in the forester's house. At length, late on in the afternoon, the steward appeared. He came in hastily, without waiting to be announced.

"Herr Nordeck, I must beg of you to come over to the manor-farm," he said. "Your presence there is urgently needed."

Waldemar looked up. "What is it? Has anything happened to one of the wounded?"

"No, not that," said Frank, evasively; "but I must entreat you to come yourself. We have had news from the border. There has been a decisive engagement out at W----. A regular battle was fought this morning against the Morynski corps."

"Well, with what issue?" asked Nordeck, in extreme suspense and anxiety.

"The insurgents have suffered a terrible defeat. It is said there had been treason at work, that they were taken by surprise. They defended themselves desperately, but were forced to succ.u.mb to superior numbers at last. The survivors are scattered to all points of the compa.s.s."

"And their leader, Count Morynski?"

The steward looked down.

"Is he dead?"

"No; but seriously wounded, and in the enemy's hands."

"So that, too, is added!" Waldemar murmured. He himself had never been on intimate terms with his uncle; but Wanda!--he knew with what pa.s.sionate love she clung to her father. Had he fallen in the fight, she would have borne it better than to know him exposed to such a fate, and exposed to it through _whom_! Who was to blame for the defeat of that corps, surprised by an attack from which it believed itself protected by the cover of Prince Baratowski's advance-guard?

Waldemar summoned up all his self-command. "Who brought the news? Is it trustworthy, or mere report?"