Under a Charm, Vol. I, Elisabeth Bürstenbinder (AKA E. Werner)

 

 

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UNDER A CHARM.

UNDER A CHARM.

A Novel.

FROM THE GERMAN OF E. WERNER,
By CHRISTINA TYRRELL.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1877.

(All rights reserved.)

PART THE FIRST.

UNDER A CHARM.

CHAPTER I.

The hot summer day was drawing to its close. The sun had already set; but the rosy flush of evening still lingered on the horizon, casting a radiant glow over the sea, which lay calm, scarce moved by a ripple, reflecting the last splendour of the departing day.

Close to the shore on the outskirts of C----, the fashionable watering-place, but at some little distance from the promenade, which at this hour was thronged by a brilliant, many-coloured crowd of visitors, stood a plain country house. Unpretending in appearance, compared with the other, for the most part, far larger and grander houses and villas of the place, it was remarkable for nothing save only for the beauty of its situation, its windows commanding a limitless view over the sea. Otherwise it stood there secluded, almost solitary, and could certainly only be preferred by such guests as wished rather to avoid, than to court, the noisy, busy life of C---- during the bathing season.

At the open glass-door, which led out on to the balcony, stood a lady dressed in deep mourning. She was tall and imposing of stature, and might still pass for beautiful, although she had more than reached life's meridian. That face, with its clear regular lines, had, it is true, never possessed the charms of grace and loveliness; but, for that very reason, years had taken nothing from the cold severe beauty it still triumphantly retained. The black attire, the crape veil shading her brow, seemed to point to some heavy, and probably recent, loss; but one looked in vain for the trace of past tears in those eyes, for a touch of softness in those features so indicative of energy. If sorrow had really drawn nigh this woman, she had either not felt it very deeply, or had already overcome its pangs.

At her side stood a gentleman, like herself, of distinguished and noble carriage. He might, in reality, be only a few years older than his fair neighbour; but he looked as though more than a decade lay between them, for time had not passed by him with so light a hand. His grave face, very full of character, with its sharp, deeply marked features, had plainly weathered many a storm in life's journey; his thick dark hair was here and there streaked with grey; line upon line furrowed his brow, and there was a sombre melancholy in his eyes which communicated itself to the man's whole countenance.

"Still nothing to be seen! They will hardly return before sunset."

"You should have sent us word of your arrival," said the lady. "We only expected you in a few days. Besides, the boat does not come in sight until it has rounded that wooded promontory yonder, and then in a very few minutes it is here."

She stepped back into the room, and turned to a servant who was in the act of carrying some travelling wraps into one of the adjoining rooms.

"Go down to the shore, Pawlick," said she, "and directly the boat comes to land, tell my son and my niece that Count Morynski has arrived."

The servant withdrew in compliance with the order received. Count Morynski left his post on the balcony, and came into the room, seating himself by the lady's side.

"Forgive my impatience," he said. "The meeting with my sister ought to suffice me for the present; but it is a whole year since I last saw my child."

The lady smiled. "You will not see much more of the 'child.' A year makes a great change at her age, and Wanda gives promise of beauty."

"And her mental development? In your letters you have ever expressed yourself satisfied on that head."

"Certainly; she always outstrips her tasks. I have rather to restrain than to stimulate her ardour. In that respect I have nothing to wish for; but there is one point on which much is to be desired. Wanda has a strong, a most decided will of her own, and she is disposed to assert it passionately. I have sometimes been obliged to enforce the obedience she was greatly inclined to refuse me."

A fleeting smile brightened the father's face, as he replied, "A singular reproach from your lips! To have a will and to assert it under all circumstances is a prominent trait of your character--a family trait with us, indeed, I may say."

"Which, however, is not to be tolerated in a girl of sixteen, for there it only shows itself as defiance and caprice," his sister interrupted him. "I tell you beforehand, you yourself will have frequent occasion to combat it."

It seemed as though the turn taken by the conversation were not specially agreeable to the Count.

"I know that I could not give my child into better hands than yours," he said, evading the subject; "and for that reason I am doubly glad that, though I am about to claim Wanda for myself, she will not have to do without you altogether. I did not think you would make up your mind to return so soon after your husband's death. I expected you would stay in Paris, at all events until Leo had completed his studies."

The lady shook her head. "I never felt at home in Paris, in spite of the years we spent there. The emigrant's fate is no enviable one--you know it by experience. Prince Baratowski, indeed, could not again set foot in his own country; but no one can prevent his widow and son from returning, so I resolved to come without delay. Leo must be allowed to breathe his native air once more, so that he may feel himself truly a son of the soil. On him now rest all the hopes of our race. He is still very young, no doubt; but he must learn to outrun his years, and to make himself acquainted with those duties and tasks which have now devolved on him through his father's death."

"And where do you think of taking up your abode?" asked Count Morynski. "You know that my house is at all times ..."

"I know it," the Princess interrupted him; "but no, thanks. For me the all-important point now is to assure Leo's future, and to give him the means of maintaining his name and position before the world. This has been hard enough for us of late, and now it has become a perfect impossibility. You know our circumstances, and are aware what sacrifices our banishment has imposed on us. Something must be done. For my son's sake I have decided upon a step which, for myself alone, I never would have taken. Do you guess why I chose C---- for our place of sojourn this summer?"

"No; but I was surprised at it. Witold's estate lies within five or six miles of this, and I thought you would rather have avoided the neighbourhood. But perhaps you are in communication with Waldemar again?"

"No," said the Princess, coldly. "I have not seen him since we left for France, and since then have hardly had a line from him. During all these years he has had no thought for his mother."

"Nor his mother for him," observed the Count, parenthetically.

"Was I to expose myself to a rebuff, to a humiliation?" asked the Princess with some warmth. "This Witold has always been hostile to me; he has exercised his unlimited authority as guardian in the most offensive manner, setting me completely at nought. I am powerless as opposed to him."

"He would hardly have ventured to cut off all intercourse between you and Waldemar. A mother's rights are too sacred to be thus put aside, had you but insisted on them with your usual resolution. That, however, was never the case, to my knowledge, for--be candid, Hedwiga--you never had any love for your eldest son."

Hedwiga made no reply to this reproach. She rested her head on her hand in silence.

"I can understand that he does not take the first place in your heart," went on the Count. "He is the son of a husband whom you did not love, who was forced upon you--the living reminder of a marriage you cannot yet think of without bitterness. Leo is the child of your heart, of your affections ..."

"His father never gave me cause for a word of complaint," the Princess added, emphatically.

The Count shrugged his shoulders slightly. "You ruled Baratowski completely; but that is not the question now. You have a plan; do you intend to renew former, half-forgotten relations with Witold and his ward?"

"I intend, at last, to assert those rights of which I was robbed by Nordeck's will--that unjust will, every line of which was dictated by hatred of me, which deprived alike the widow and the mother of her due. Hitherto it has remained in full force; but its provisions fixed Waldemar's majority at the age of one and twenty. He attained that age on his last birthday, and he is now his own master. I wish to see whether he will suffer things to go so far that his mother must seek an asylum with her relations, while he reckons among the richest landowners of the country, and it would cost him but a word to assure me and his brother a suitable position and means of existence on one of the estates."

Morynski shook his head doubtfully.

"You count upon finding natural filial affection in this son of yours. I am afraid you are deceiving yourself. He has been severed from you since his earliest childhood, and love for his mother will hardly have been inculcated on him as a duty. I never saw him but as a child, when, I own, he made the most unfavourable impression upon me. One thing I know for certain, he was the reverse of tractable."

"I know it too," returned the Princess with equanimity. "He is his father's son, and, like him, rough, unmanageable, and incapable of all higher culture. Even as a boy he resembled him, trait for trait; and, with such a guardian as Witold, education will have given the finishing touches to Nature's work. I do not deceive myself as to Waldemar's character; but, nevertheless, there will be a way of leading him. Minds of an inferior order always yield in the end to intellectual superiority. Everything depends upon making it properly felt."

"Were you able to lead his father?" asked her brother, gravely.

"You forget, Bronislaus, that I was then but a girl of seventeen, without experience, altogether unversed in the ways of the world. I should now be able to compass even such a character as his, and should certainly gain an ascendancy over him. Besides this, with Waldemar, I shall have on my side the weight of my authority as his mother. He will bend to it."

The Count looked very incredulous at these words, spoken in a tone of great decision. He had no time to reply, for a light, rapid step was now heard in the anteroom. The door was flung open with impetuous haste, and a young girl, rushing in, threw herself into the arms of Morynski, who sprang up and clasped his daughter to his breast with passionate tenderness.

The Princess had risen also. She did not seem quite to approve of so stormy a greeting on the part of the young lady; she said nothing, however, but turned to her son, who came in at that moment.

"You stayed out a long time, Leo. We have been expecting you for the last hour."

"Forgive us, mamma. The sunset on the sea was so beautiful, we could not bear to lose a minute of it."

With these words, Leo Baratowski went up to his mother. He was, indeed, very young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age. One look in his face was sufficient to show that his features were modelled on those of the Princess. The resemblance was striking, as it only can be between mother and son; and yet the latter's fine youthful head, with its dark, curly hair, bore quite another stamp from hers. The cold, severe expression was wanting. Here all was fire and life; all the passion of a glowing, and as yet unbridled, temperament blazed in the dark eyes, and his whole appearance was such an impersonation of adolescent strength and beauty, it was not difficult to understand the pride with which the Princess took her son's hand to lead him to his uncle.

"Leo has no father now," she said, gravely. "I shall look to you for help, Bronislaus, when the counsel and guidance of a man become necessary to him in his career."

The Count embraced his nephew with heartfelt warmth, but in a far quieter fashion than that in which he had received his daughter. The sight of her seemed for the present to drive all else into the background. His looks continually wandered back to the young girl, who, in this last year during which he had been separated from her, had almost grown to maiden's estate.

Wanda was not in the least like her father. If the likeness between Leo and his mother were striking in the extreme, here, between father and daughter, such resemblance was altogether wanting. The young Countess Morynska was, indeed, like no one but herself. Her slender, graceful figure was as yet unformed, and she had evidently not attained to her full height. The face, too, was childlike, though her features already justified the Princess's claim on their behalf. A rather pale face it was, the cheeks being tinged only by faintest pink; but there was nothing sickly in this paleness, and it in no way diminished the impression of fresh and healthful vigour. Her luxuriant, raven-black hair set the whiteness of her complexion in still stronger relief, and dark dewy eyes were hid beneath the long black lashes. Wanda did indeed give promise of beauty. As yet she had it not; but, on the other hand, she possessed that peculiar charm which belongs to many a girlish figure, standing on the boundary line between child and maiden hood. There was about her a pretty blending of the child's petulance and artlessness with the graver demeanour of the young lady, who, at every turn, calls to mind her sixteen years; while the bloom of early youth, of the blossom budding forth, invested her whole person with a special grace of its own, and made her doubly charming.

When the first emotion of the meeting was over, the conversation flowed in calmer channels. Count Morynski had drawn his daughter down on to a seat near him, and was jestingly reproaching her for her late return.

"I knew nothing of your arrival, papa," Wanda said in self-defence; "and, besides, I had an adventure in the forest."

"In the forest?" interrupted her aunt. "Were you not on the water, with Leo?"

"Only coming back, aunt. We intended to sail back to the Beech Holm, as had been agreed; but Leo declared, and persisted in it, that the way by sea was far nearer than by the footpath through the wood. I maintained the contrary. We argued about it for some time, and at last decided upon each proving we were right. Leo sailed alone, and I set off through the forest."

"And reached the Beech Holm quite safely a good half-hour after me," said Leo, triumphantly.

"I had lost my way," asserted the young lady, warmly; "and I should very likely be in the forest still if I had not been put right."

"And who put you right?" asked the Count.

Wanda laughed mischievously. "A wood-demon, one of the old giants who are said to wander about here at times. But don't ask me any more now, papa. Leo is burning with curiosity to know all about it. He has been teasing me with questions the whole way back, and therefore he shall not hear a syllable."

"It is all an invention," cried Leo, laughing, "a pretext to explain your late arrival. You would rather make up a long story than acknowledge I was right for once."

Wanda was about to retort in the same tone, when the Princess interfered.

"Pretext or not," said she, sharply, "this solitary walk, taken without consulting any one, was to the last degree improper. I had given you permission to go for a short sail in Leo's company, and I cannot understand how he could leave you in the woods for hours, by yourself."

"But Wanda would go," said Leo, by way of excuse. "She wanted to have our dispute about the distance settled."

"Yes, dear aunt, I would go" (the young lady laid greater stress on the word than she would have ventured to do, had her father not been protectingly at hand), "and Leo knew very well it was useless to try and hold me back."

Here was a fresh instance of the girl's wilfulness, requiring to be severely dealt with.

The Princess was about to deliver a serious reprimand, when her brother quickly interposed.

"You will allow me to take Wanda with me?" said he. "I feel rather tired from the journey, and should like to go to my room. Good-bye for the present." With this he rose, took his daughter's arm, and left the room with her.

"My uncle seems in raptures at the sight of Wanda," remarked Leo, as the two disappeared.

The Princess looked after them in silence. "He will overlook it," she said at last, under her breath; "he will worship her with blind adoration, such as he lavished formerly on her mother, and Wanda will soon know her power and learn to use it. This was what I feared from a return to her father. The very first hour shows that I was right. What is this story about an adventure in the forest, Leo?"

Leo shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Probably one of Wanda's teasing jokes. She made me curious at first with all sorts of hints, and then obstinately refused to tell me more, taking great delight in my vexation. You know her way."

"Yes, I know her way." There was a slight frown on the Princess's brow. "Wanda likes to play with every one and everything, to let all who come near her feel her arbitrary humour. You should not make it so easy to her, Leo, at least so far as you yourself are concerned."

The young Prince crimsoned to the temples. "I, mamma? Why, I am always quarrelling with Wanda!"

"And always submitting in the end to be led by her caprices. Do not tell me, my son--I know who invariably triumphs when a contest arises between you two; but, for the present, this is all childishness. I wanted to speak to you of something serious. Shut the balcony door, and come here to me."

Leo obeyed. His face showed that he was offended, less, perhaps, by the reproof administered to him, than by the expression 'childishness.'

The Princess, however, took not the slightest notice of his mood.

"You know," she began, "that I had been married before I bestowed my hand on your father, and that a son of that first marriage still lives. You know, too, that he has been reared and educated in Germany; but up to this time you have never seen him. A meeting between you will now take place. You are to make his acquaintance."

Leo sprang up, his eyes sparkling with eagerness and liveliest surprise.

"My brother Waldemar?"

"Waldemar Nordeck, yes." The emphasis laid on the latter name conveyed a perhaps unintentional, but most decided, protest against this relationship between a Nordeck and a Baratowski. "He lives in this neighbourhood on his guardian's estate. I have sent him word of our presence here, and I expect he will come over one of these days."

Leo's previous ill-humour had vanished. The subject was evidently one of the greatest interest to him. "Mamma," said he, hesitatingly, "may I not hear something more of these sad family affairs? All I know is that your marriage was an unhappy one, that you are at variance with Waldemar's relations, and with his guardian. Even this I have only learned from my uncle's allusions, and from hints dropped by old servants of our house. I have never ventured to ask a question, either of you or of my father. I saw that it would hurt him, and make you angry. You both seemed anxious to banish the remembrance from your mind."

A singularly hard expression came over the Princess's features, and the tone of her voice was hard too, as she replied, "Certainly, old mortifications and humiliations are best hidden from view and forgotten, and that unhappy union was fertile in both. Do not ask me about it now, Leo. You know the events that happened. Let that suffice you. I neither can nor will take you, step by step, through a family drama, of which I cannot think even now without a feeling of hatred for the dead rising up within me. I thought to efface those three years altogether from my life, and little dreamed that I should one day be compelled myself to call up the memory of them."

"And what compels you?" asked Leo, quickly. "Not our return? We are going to my uncle's, at Rakowicz, are we not?"

"No, my son, we are going to Wilicza."

"To Wilicza!" repeated Leo, in surprise. "Why, that is ... that is Waldemar's place!"

"It would have been my dower-house, but for the will which ejected me," said the Princess, in a cutting tone; "now it is the property of my son. Room will certainly be found there for his mother."

Leo started back with an impetuous gesture. "What does it mean?" he asked, hotly. "Are you going to lower yourself before this Waldemar, to ask a favour of him? I know that we are poor; but I would bear anything, do without anything, rather than consent that, for my sake, you ..."

The Princess rose suddenly. Her look and attitude were so commanding that the boy stopped short in the midst of his passionate protest.

"Do you suppose that your mother is capable of lowering herself? Have you so little knowledge of her? Leave to me the care of upholding my dignity--and yours. It really is not needful that you should point out to me the limits to which I may go. It is for me alone to judge of them."

Leo was silent, and looked down. His mother went up to him, and took his hand.

"Will this hot head of yours never learn to reason quietly?" said she, more gently. "Yet calm reflection will be so necessary to it in life? My plans with regard to Waldemar I shall carry out myself, alone. If there be bitterness attaching to them, you, my Leo, shall feel nothing of it. You must keep your sight unclouded, your spirit fresh and valiant for the future which is in store for you. That is your task. Mine is to assure you that future at any cost. Trust your mother."

With a dumb prayer for forgiveness, her son raised her hand to his lips. She drew him to her; and, as she bent down to kiss the handsome, animated face, it became manifest that this cold, austere woman had a mother's heart, and that, in spite of the severity with which she treated him, Leo was that heart's idol.

CHAPTER II.

"Do oblige me by leaving off those everlasting lamentations of yours, Doctor. I tell you, there is no changing the boy. I have tried often enough, and I have had six tutors, one after the other, to help me. We could none of us do anything with him; you can't do anything either, so just let him go his own way."

This speech, delivered in the most vigorous tones, was addressed by Herr Witold, Squire of Altenhof, to the gentleman intrusted with his ward's education. The room in which the two were seated was situated at the end of the house of which it formed a corner. Its windows were thrown open on account of the heat, and its whole appearance seemed to indicate that the dwellers therein held such things as elegance and comfort to be quite superfluous, if not absolutely harmful, indulgences. The plain and, for the most part, antiquated furniture was scattered here and there, without the least regard for tasteful, or even for commodious, arrangement--pushed right and left to serve the convenience of the moment. On the walls hung guns, sporting tackle, and antlers in indiscriminate confusion. Wherever room for a nail had been found, there that nail had been driven in, and the article on hand at the time hung thereon, without the smallest consideration for the figure it made in the place allotted to it. The bureau was loaded with piles of house and farm accounts, together with tobacco pipes, spurs, and half a dozen riding-whips. The newspaper lay on the carpet; for carpet there was, in name at least, though its absence would have proved a better ornament to the room, since it bore but too evident traces of serving the great setter as his daily couch. Not a thing was in the place to which it rightly belonged; but rather there where it had last been made use of, and where it remained ready for any future occasion. One single object in the room testified, and that in a truly appalling manner, to the owner's artistic tastes, namely, a brilliant hunting-piece of most intense and vivid colouring, which hung in the place of honour over the sofa.

The Squire sat in his armchair by the window, lost in the dense clouds of smoke which issued from his meerschaum. A man of about sixty years, he looked relatively young, in spite of his white hair, and was evidently in the full enjoyment of health and strength. He was of an important presence, his height and bulk being alike considerable. There was, perhaps, not overmuch intelligence in the ruddy face; but, on the other hand, it wore an unmistakable air of good humour. His dress, made up partly of indoor raiment and partly of hunting gear, was decidedly negligent; and his whole massive person, with its powerful, deep-toned voice, formed the strongest contrast to the lank figure of the tutor, now standing before him.

The Doctor might be thirty or thereabouts. He was of middle height, but his stooping attitude made him appear short of stature. His face was not exactly unhandsome, but it wore too evident a look of sickliness, and of the depression bred of a painful position in life, to prove attractive. His complexion was pale and unhealthy, his brow deeply lined, and his eyes had that abstracted, uncertain expression peculiar to those who seldom, if ever, bring their thoughts altogether to bear on the realities around them. His black attire was ordered with scrupulous care; and there was an air of anxious timidity about the man's whole being, betraying itself in his voice, as he replied in a low tone--

"You know, Herr Witold, that I never apply to you, save in an extreme case. This time I must call upon you to use your authority. I am at my wits' end."

"What has Waldemar been doing now?" asked the master of the house, impatiently. "I know he is unmanageable as well as you do, but I can't help you in the matter. The boy got far beyond my control long ago. He will obey no one now, not even me. He runs away from your books, and prefers to be off with his gun, does he? Tut! I was no better at his age. They could never ram all their learned stuff into my head. He has no manners, has not he? Well, he does not want them. We live here among ourselves, and when we do have a neighbourly meeting now and again, we don't make much ceremony about it. You know that well enough, Doctor. You always take to your heels, and escape from our shooting parties and drinking bouts."

"But, only think," objected the tutor, "if Waldemar with his rough wild ways were, later in life, to be thrown into another sphere; if he were to marry ..."

"Marry!" exclaimed Witold, absolutely hurt by such a supposition. "He will never do such a thing. What should he marry for? I have remained a bachelor all my life, and find myself uncommonly comfortable; and poor Nordeck would have done better to keep single. No, thank God, there is no fear of our Waldemar! Why, he runs off at the sight of a petticoat, and he is right."

So saying, Waldemar's guardian leaned back in his chair with an air of much contentment. The Doctor drew a step nearer.

"But to return to the point from which we set out," said he, hesitatingly. "You yourself admit that my pupil will no longer be guided by me. It must therefore be high time to send him to the University."

Herr Witold sprang up from his seat so suddenly that the tutor beat a hasty retreat.

"Did not I think something of the sort was coming! I have, heard nothing else from you for the last month. What should Waldemar go to the University for? To have his head stuffed with learning by the professors? I should think you have taken good care to do that for him by this time. All that an honest country gentleman needs to know, he knows. He is as great an authority about the land and the farm business as my inspector. He keeps the people in their place far more effectually than I can, and there is not a better man in the saddle or in the field. He is a splendid young fellow!"

The tutor did not appear to share this enthusiastic view of his pupil's merits. He hardly ventured to express so much in words, but summoned up all his evidently slender stock of courage for the timid reply.

"But, sir, the heir of Wilicza requires, after all, something more than the qualifications which go to make a good inspector or land-steward. Some higher culture, some academical study, appear to me extremely desirable."

"They don't appear desirable to me at all," retorted Herr Witold. "Isn't it enough that, by-and-by, I shall have to let the boy, who is the very apple of my eye, go from me, just because his property lies in that cursed land of Polacks? Must I part from him now to send him to the University against his will? I'll do nothing of the sort, I tell you, nothing of the sort. He shall stay here until he goes to Wilicza."

With this, he puffed so savagely at his pipe that for several minutes his face disappeared behind the clouds of smoke. The tutor sighed, and was silent. His quiet resignation touched the tyrannical Squire.

"Don't trouble your mind any more about the University, Doctor," said he, in quite a changed tone; "you will never persuade Waldemar to consent to the plan as long as you live. And for yourself, too, it is better that you should stay at Altenhof. Here you are just in the midst of your tumuli and your Runic stones, or whatever you call the rubbish you are after all day long. I can't understand, for my own part, what you can see so remarkable in the old heathen lumber; but the heart of man must take delight in something, and I am right glad you can find any pleasure to satisfy you, for you have often a hard time of it with Waldemar--and with me into the bargain."

The Doctor, much confused, made a deprecatory gesture. "Oh, Herr Witold!"

"Don't put yourself out," said the other, good-naturedly. "I know that in your secret soul you look upon our life here as a godless business, and that you would have run away from us long ago, if it had not been for the heathen rubbish you have grown so fond of, and which you can't bring yourself to part from. Well, I am not such a bad fellow after all, you know, though I do fly out in a passion occasionally; and as you are always pottering about among the pagans, you must be just in your element here with us. I have heard say that people in those days had no manners at all. They used to fight and murder each other out of pure friendship."

The historical information displayed by Herr Witold appeared to the Doctor to have a dangerous tendency. Possibly he feared some practical illustration of it on his own person, for he backed by almost imperceptible degrees behind the sofa.

"Excuse me, the old Teutons ..."

"Were not cut out after your pattern, Doctor," cried the Squire with a shout of laughter, for the manœuvre had not escaped him. "I know that much, at all events. I think, of us all, Waldemar comes the nearest to them, so I can't make out what fault you can find with him."

"But, Herr Witold, in the nineteenth century ..." The Doctor got no further in his dissertation, for at that moment the crack of a shot was heard--of a shot fired close to the open window. A bullet whistled through the room, and the great stag's antlers, which hung over the bureau, fell down with a crash.

The Squire jumped up from his seat. "Waldemar! What does this mean? Is the boy taking to shoot into the very rooms? Wait a moment; I'll put a stop to that work!"

He would have hurried out, but was stopped at the entrance by a young man, who pushed, or rather flung, open the door, letting it fall to on its hinges again with a bang. He wore a shooting suit, and carried in his hand the gun which had caused the late report, while at his side stalked a great pointer. Without any sort of greeting, or of excuse for this violent mode of making his appearance, he went up to Witold, placed himself right before him, and asked triumphantly--

"Now, which of us was right, you or I?"

The Squire was really angry. "Is that the way to behave, shooting over people's heads?" he cried, testily. "One is not sure of one's life with you now. Do you want to put the Doctor and me out of the world?"

Waldemar shrugged his shoulders. "Where was the harm? I wanted to win my wager. You declared yesterday I should not hit that nail, where the twelve-year-old hung, from outside. There's my ball, up there."

He pointed to the wall. Witold followed the direction.

"It really is!" said he, full of admiration, and altogether appeased. "Doctor, just look--but what is the matter with you?"

"Doctor Fabian has got another of his nervous attacks, no doubt," said Waldemar ironically, laying aside his gun, but making no attempt to succour his teacher, who had sunk back on the sofa, half fainting with the fright, and was still trembling from head to foot. The good-natured Witold raised him up, and encouraged him to the best of his ability.

"Come, come, who would think of fainting because a little powder went off! Why, it is not worth speaking of. We had laid the wager, that is quite true; but how was I to know the young madcap would set to work in such a senseless fashion? Instead of calling us out, that we might look on quietly, he makes no more ado, but takes his aim straight over our heads. Are you better now? Ah, that's right, thank God!"

Doctor Fabian had risen, and was striving to master his emotion; but as yet he could not quite succeed.

"You might have shot us, Waldemar," said he, with pale and trembling lips.

"No, Doctor, I might not," answered Waldemar, in a tone the reverse of reverential. "You and my uncle were standing to the right, and I aimed over there to the left, at least five paces off. You know I never miss."

"No matter, you will let it alone in future," declared Witold, with an attempt at asserting his authority as guardian. "The deuce himself may be playing tricks with the balls, and then there will be an accident. Once for all, I forbid you to shoot anywhere near the house."

The young man crossed his arms defiantly. "You can forbid me, uncle, as much as you like, but I shan't obey. I shall shoot if I choose."

He stood confronting his guardian, the very incarnation of rebellious wilfulness. Waldemar Nordeck's whole appearance was of the true Germanic type; no single feature of his bore evidence to the fact that his mother had come of another race. His tall, almost gigantic, figure towered several inches above even Witold's portly form; but his frame lacked symmetry, every line in it was sharp and angular. His light hair seemed in its overabundance to be quite a troublesome load on his head, for it fell low down over his brow, whence it was tossed back every now and then with an impatient gesture. His blue eyes had a sombre and, in moments of excitement like the present, almost a fierce expression. His face was decidedly plain. Here, too, the lines were sharp and unformed; all the boy's softer contours had vanished, and were not as yet replaced by the set features of the man. In the case of this young man, the transition stage was so marked as to be almost repulsive; and the uncouthness of his manners, his complete disdain of all polite forms, did not tend to diminish the unfavourable impression created by his appearance.

Herr Witold was evidently one of those men whose person and bearing seem to argue an energy of which, in reality, they possess not a particle. Instead of meeting his ward's defiant rudeness with steady resolution, the guardian thought proper to give way.

"I told you so, Doctor; the boy won't mind me any longer," said he, with an equanimity which showed that this was the usual outcome of such differences, and that, whenever it should please the young gentleman to be in earnest, the uncle would be found powerless as the tutor.

Waldemar took no further notice of either of them. He threw himself at full length on the sofa, without the least regard to the fact that his boots, completely soaked by a journey through the marshes, were coming in contact with the cushions; while the pointer, who had also been in the water, followed his master's example, and, with equal recklessness, settled himself down comfortably on the carpet.

A rather awkward pause ensued. The Squire, grumbling to himself, tried to light his pipe, which had gone out in the interval. Dr. Fabian had taken refuge by the window, and, gazing out, cast a look towards heaven which said more plainly than any words that, truly, he did consider the way of life here to be 'a godless sort of business.'

The Squire had meanwhile been hunting for his tobacco pouch, which was at last happily discovered on the bureau, under the spurs and riding-whips. As he drew it out, an unopened envelope fell close by his hand. He took it up.

"I had nearly forgotten that. Waldemar, there is a letter for you."

"For me?" asked Waldemar, indifferently, and yet with that touch of surprise called up by an event of rare occurrence.

"Yes. There's a coronet on the seal, and a coat of arms with all sorts of heraldic beasts. From the Princess Baratowska, I presume. It is a long time since we have been honoured with her Highness's gracious autograph."

Young Nordeck broke open the letter, and glanced through it. It seemed to contain but a few lines; nevertheless, a heavy cloud gathered on the reader's brow.

"Well, what is it?" asked Witold. "Are the conspirators still hatching their plots in Paris? I did not look at the postmark."

"The Princess and her son are out yonder at C----," reported Waldemar. He seemed purposely to avoid the names of mother and brother. "She wishes to see me. I shall ride over to-morrow morning."

"You will do nothing of the kind," said the Squire. "Your princely relatives have not troubled themselves about you for years, and they need not begin now. We want nothing of them. Stay where you are."

"Uncle, I have had enough of being ordered about and forbidden to do this and that!" Waldemar broke out, with such sudden vehemence that the Squire stared at him open-mouthed. "Am I a schoolboy that I need ask your leave at every step? Have not I the right, at one and twenty, to decide whether I will see my mother or not? I have decided, and to-morrow morning I shall ride over to C----."

"Well, don't put yourself in a passion, and be so bearish," said Witold, more astonished than angry at this outburst of fury, which was quite inexplicable to him. "Go where you like, so far as I am concerned; but I'll have nothing to do with the Polish lot--that I tell you."

Waldemar wrapped himself in sullen silence. He took his gun, whistled to his dog, and left the room. His guardian looked after him, and shook his head. All at once a thought seemed to strike him. He took up the letter, which Waldemar had carelessly left lying on the table, and read it through. Now it was Herr Witold's turn to knit his brow and frown more and more ominously, until at last the storm broke.

"I thought so!" he cried, thumping with his fist on the table. "It is just like my fine madam. In six lines she stirs the boy up to rebel against me. That is the reason he turned so cantankerous all in a minute. Listen to this delightful letter, Doctor: 'My son,--Years have passed, during which you have given no sign of life.'--As if she had given us any!--'I only know through strangers that you are living at Altenhof with your guardian. I am staying at C---- just now, and should rejoice to see you here, and to have an opportunity of introducing your brother to you. I know not, indeed,'--listen, Doctor, this is where she pricks him,--'I know not, indeed, whether you will be free to pay me this visit. I hear that, notwithstanding you have attained your majority, you are still quite subject to your guardian's will.'--Doctor, you are witness of how the boy tramples on us both day after day!--'Of your readiness to come I make no doubt; but I do not feel so sure that Herr Witold will grant his permission. I have therefore preferred to address myself directly to you, that I may see whether you possess sufficient strength of character to comply with this, the first wish your mother has ever expressed to you, or whether you dare not accede even to this request of hers.'--The 'dare' is underlined. --'If I am right in the former supposition, I shall expect to see you shortly. Your brother joins me in love.--Your mother.'"

Herr Witold was so exasperated that he dashed the letter to the ground. "There's a thing for a man to read! Cleverly managed of the lady mother, that! She knows as well as I do what a pig-headed fellow Waldemar is, and if she had studied him for years she could not have hit on his weak side better. The mere thought of restraint being placed on him makes him mad. I may move heaven and earth now to keep him; he will go just to show me he can have his own way. What do you say to the business?"

Doctor Fabian seemed sufficiently initiated in the family affairs to look upon the approaching meeting with alarm equal to the Squire's, though proceeding from a far different cause.

"Dear me! dear me!" he said, anxiously. "If Waldemar goes over to C---- and behaves in his usual rough, unmannerly fashion, if the Princess sees him so, what will she think of him?"

"Think he has taken after his father, and not after her," was the Squire's emphatic reply. "That is just how she ought to see Waldemar; then it will be made evident to her that he will be no docile instrument to serve her intrigues--for that there are intrigues on foot again, I'd wager my head. Either the princely purse is empty--I fancy it never was too full--or there is some neat little State conspiracy concocting again, and Wilicza lies handy for it, being so close to the frontier."

"But, Herr Witold," remonstrated the Doctor, "why try to widen the unhappy breach in the family, now that the mother gives proof of a conciliatory spirit? Would it not be better to make peace at last?"

"You don't understand, Doctor," said Witold, with a bitterness quite unusual to him. "There is no peace to be made with that woman, unless one surrenders one's own will, and consents to be ruled entirely by her; it was because poor Nordeck would not do so that she led him the life of hell at home. Now, I won't exonerate him altogether. He had some nasty faults, and could make things hard for a woman; but all the troubles came of his taking this Morynska for a wife. Another girl might have led him, might perhaps have changed some things in him; but, for such a task, a little heart would have been needed, and of that article Madam Hedwiga never had much to show. Well, the 'degradation,' as they call it, of her first marriage has been made good by the second. It was only a pity that the Princess Baratowska, with her son and spouse, could not take up her residence at Wilicza. She could never get over that; but luckily the will drew the bolt there, and we have taken care to bring up Waldemar in such a way that he is not likely to undo its work by any act of folly."

"We!" exclaimed the Doctor, much shocked. "Herr Witold, I have given my lessons conscientiously, according to my instructions. I have unfortunately never been able to influence my pupil's mind and character, or ..." he hesitated.

"Or he would have been different from what he is," added Witold, laughing. "The youngster suits me as he is, in spite of his wild ways. If you like it better, I have brought him up. If the result does not fit in with the Baratowskis' plots and plans, I shall be right glad; and if my education and their Parisian breeding get fairly by the ears to-morrow, I shall be still better pleased. Then we shall be quits, at least, for that spiteful letter yonder."

With these words the Squire left the room. The Doctor stooped to pick up the letter, which still lay on the floor. He took it up, folded it carefully together, and said, with a profound sigh--

"And one day people will say, 'It was a Dr. Fabian who brought up the young heir.' Oh, just Heaven!"

CHAPTER III.

The domain of Wilicza, to which Waldemar Nordeck was heir, was situated in one of the eastern provinces of the country, and consisted of a vast agglomeration of estates, whereof the central point was the old castle Wilicza, with the lands of the same name. To tell how the late Herr Nordeck obtained possession of this domain, and subsequently won for himself the hand of a Countess Morynska, would be to add a fresh chapter to that tale, so oft repeated in our days, of the fall of ancient families, once rich and influential, and the rise of a middle-class element which, with the wealth, acquires the power that was formerly claimed by the nobility as their exclusive privilege.

Count Morynski and his sister were early left orphans, and lived under the guardianship of their relations. Hedwiga was educated in a convent; on leaving it, she found that her hand was already disposed of. This was assuredly nothing unusual in the noble circles to which she belonged, and the young Countess would have acquiesced unconditionally, had her destined husband been of equal birth with herself--had he been one of her own people; but she had been chosen as the instrument to work out the family plans, which, at all costs, must be carried into execution.

Some few years ago, in the neighbourhood where lay the property of most of the Morynski family, a certain Nordeck had arisen--a German, of low birth, but who had attained to great wealth, and had settled in that part of the country. The condition of the province at that time made it easy for a foreign element to graft itself on the soil, whereas, under ordinary circumstances, every hindrance would have been opposed to it. The after-throes of the last rebellion, which, though it had actually broken out beyond the frontier, had awakened a fellow-feeling throughout the German provinces, made themselves everywhere felt. Half the nobility had fled, or were impoverished by the sacrifices they had been eager to make in the cause of their fatherland; it was, therefore, not difficult for Nordeck to buy up the debt-laden estates at a tithe of their value, and, by degrees, to obtain possession of a domain which insured him a position among the first landed proprietors of the country.

The intruder was, it is true, wanting in breeding, and of most unprepossessing appearance; moreover, it soon became evident that he had neither mind nor character to recommend him. Yet his immense property gave him a weight in the land which was but too speedily recognised, especially as, with determined hostility to all connected with the Polish faction, his influence was invariably thrown into the opposite scale. This may possibly have been his revenge for the fact that the exclusively aristocratic and Slavonic neighbourhood held him at a distance, and treated him with unconcealed, nay, very openly manifested contempt. Whether imprudencies had been committed on the side of the disaffected, or whether the cunning stranger had played the spy on his own account, suffice it to say that he gained an insight into certain party machinations. This made him a most formidable adversary. To secure his goodwill became a necessity of the situation.

The man must be won over at any cost, and it had long been known that such winning over was possible. As a millionaire, he was naturally inaccessible to bribery; his vulnerable point, therefore, was his vanity, which made him look on an alliance with one of the old noble Polish families with a favourable eye. Perhaps the circumstance that, half a century before, Wilicza had been in the possession of the Morynskis directed the choice to the granddaughter of the last proprietor; perhaps no other house was ready to offer up a daughter or a sister, to exact from them the obedience now demanded of the poor dependent orphan. It flattered the rough parvenu to think that the hand of a Countess Morynska was within his grasp. A dowry was no object to him, so he entered into the plan with great zest; and thus, at her first entrance into the world, Hedwiga found herself face to face with a destiny against which her whole being revolted.

Her first step was decidedly to refuse compliance; but what availed the 'no' of a girl of seventeen when opposed to a family resolve dictated by urgent necessity? Commands and threats proving of no effect, recourse was had to persuasion. The young relation was shown the brilliant rôle she would have to play as mistress of Wilicza, the unlimited ascendancy she would assuredly exercise over a man to whose level she stooped so low. Much was said of the satisfaction a Morynska would feel on once more obtaining control over property torn from her ancestors; much, too, of the pressing need existing of converting the dreaded adversary into a ductile tool for the furtherance of their own plans. It was required of her that she should hold Wilicza, and the enormous revenues at the disposal of its master, in the interests of her party--and where compulsion had failed, argument succeeded. The rôle of a poor relation was by no means to the young Countess's taste. She was glowing with ambition. The heart's needs and affections were unknown to her; and when, at sight of her, Nordeck betrayed some fleeting spark of passion, she too believed that her dominion over him would be unbounded. So she yielded, and the marriage took place.

But the plans, the selfish calculations of both parties were alike to be brought to nought. His neighbours had been mistaken in their estimate of this man. Instead of bowing to his young wife's will, he now showed himself as lord and master, impervious to all influence, regardless of her superior rank; his passing fancy for his bride being soon transformed into hatred when he discovered that she only desired to make use of him and of his fortune to serve her own ends and those of her family. The birth of a son made no change in their relations to each other; if anything, the gulf between husband and wife seemed to be only widened by it. Nordeck's character was not one to inspire a woman with esteem; and this woman displayed the contempt she felt for him in a way that would have stung any man to fury. Fearful scenes ensued; after one of which the young mistress of Wilicza left the castle, and fled to her brother for protection.

Little Waldemar, then barely a year old, was left with his father. Nordeck, enraged at his wife's flight, imperiously demanded her return. Bronislaus did what he could to protect his sister; and the quarrel between him and his brother-in-law might have been productive of the worst consequences, had not death unexpectedly stepped in and loosed the bonds of this short-lived, but most unhappy, union. Nordeck, who was a keen and reckless sportsman, met with an accident while out hunting. His horse fell with its rider, and the latter sustained injuries to which he shortly after succumbed; but on his deathbed he had strength enough, both of mind and body, to dictate a will excluding his wife from all share alike in his fortune and in the education of his child. Her flight from his house gave him the right so to exclude her, and he used it unsparingly. Waldemar was entrusted to the guardianship of an old school friend and distant connection, and the latter was endowed with unbounded authority. The widow tried, indeed, to resist; but the new guardian proved his friendship to the dead man by carrying out the provisions of the will with utter disregard to her feelings, and rejected all her claims. Already owner of Altenhof, Witold had no intention of remaining at Wilicza, or of leaving his ward behind him there. He took the boy with him to his own home. Nordeck's latest instructions had been to the effect that his son was to be entirely removed from his mother's influence and family; and these instructions were so strictly observed that, during the years of his minority, the young heir only paid a few flying visits to his estates, always in the company of his guardian. All his youth was spent at Altenhof.

As for the enormous revenues of Wilicza, of which at present no use could be made, they were suffered to accumulate, and went to swell the capital; so that Waldemar Nordeck, on coming of age, found himself in possession of wealth such as but few indeed could boast.

The future lord of Wilicza's mother lived on at first in the house of her brother, who meanwhile had also married; but she did not long remain there. One of the Count's most intimate friends, Prince Baratowski, fell passionately in love with the young, clever, and beautiful widow, who, so soon as the year of her mourning was out, bestowed her hand upon him. This second marriage was in all respects a happy one. People said, indeed, that the Prince, though a gallant gentleman, was not of a very energetic temperament, and that he bowed submissively to his wife's sceptre. However this may have been, he loved both her and the son she bore him, tenderly and devotedly.

But the happiness of this union was not long to remain untroubled. This time, however, the storms came from without. Leo was still a child when that revolutionary epoch arrived which set half Europe in a blaze. The rebellion, so often quelled, broke out with renewed violence in the Polish provinces. Morynski and Baratowski were true sons of their fatherland. They threw themselves with ardent enthusiasm into the struggle from which they hoped the salvation of their country and the restoration of its greatness. The insurrection ended, as so many of its predecessors had ended, in hopeless defeat. It was forcibly suppressed, and on this occasion much severity was displayed towards the rebel districts. Prince Baratowski and his brother-in-law fled to Paris, whither their wives and children followed them. Countess Morynska, a delicate, fragile woman, did not long endure the sojourn in a foreign land. She died in the following year, and Bronislaus then gave his child into his sister's charge. He himself could no longer bear to stay in Paris, where everything reminded him of the wife he had loved so ardently, and lost. He lived a restless, wandering life, roving from place to place, returning every now and then to see his daughter. At last, an amnesty being proclaimed, he was free to go back to his native country, where, through the death of a relation, he had lately succeeded to the estate of Rakowicz. He now settled down on his new property. Matters stood far otherwise with Prince Baratowski, who was excluded from the amnesty. He had been one of the leaders of the rebellion, and had taken a prominent part in the movement. Return was not to be thought of for him, and his wife and son shared his exile, until his death removed all barriers, and they too became free to make their future home where they would.

CHAPTER IV.

It was early in the forenoon, and the morning room of the villa in C----, occupied by the Baratowski family, was, for the time being, tenanted by the Princess alone. She was absorbed in the study of a letter which she had received an hour before, and which contained an announcement from Waldemar that he intended coming over that day, and should follow quickly on his messenger's steps. The mother gazed as fixedly at the missive as though from the short cold words, or from the handwriting, she were trying to discern the character of the son who had grown so complete a stranger to her. Since her second marriage she had seen him but at rare intervals; and during the latter years she had spent in France, communication between them had almost entirely ceased. The picture she still bore fresh in mind of the boy at the age of ten was unprepossessing enough, and the accounts she heard of the youth coincided but too well with it. Nevertheless, it was necessary, at any cost, to secure an influence over him; and the Princess, though she in no way attempted to disguise from herself the difficulties in her path, was not the woman to recoil from the task she had undertaken. She had risen and was pacing up and down the room, musing deeply, when a quick loud step was heard without. It halted in the anteroom. Next minute Pawlick opened the door, and announced "Herr Waldemar Nordeck." The visitor entered, the door closed behind him, and mother and son stood face to face.

Waldemar came forward a few steps, and then suddenly stopped. The Princess, in the act of going to meet him, paused in her turn. In the very moment of their meeting a bridgeless chasm seemed to yawn open between them; all the estrangement and enmity of former years rose up again mighty as ever. That pause, that silence of a second, spoke more plainly than words. It showed that the voice of natural affection was mute in the mother's heart, as in the son's. The Princess was the first to dissimulate that instinctive movement of reserve.

"I thank you for coming, my son," said she, and held out her hand to him.

Waldemar drew near slowly. He just touched the offered hand, and then let it drop. No attempt at an embrace was made on either side. The Princess's figure, notwithstanding her dusky mourning robes, was very beautiful and imposing as she stood there in the bright sunlight; but it appeared to make no impression on the young man, albeit he kept his eyes steadily fixed on her.

The mother's gaze was riveted on his face; but she sought in vain there for any reflection of her own features, for any trace which should recall herself. Nothing met her view but a speaking likeness to the man she hated even in death. The father stood before her portrayed in his son, trait for trait.

"I counted upon your visit," went on the Princess, as she sat down and, with a slight wave of her hand, assigned to him a place at her side.

Waldemar did not move.

"Will you not be seated?" The question was put quietly, but it admitted of no refusal, and reminded young Nordeck that he could not conveniently remain standing during the whole of his visit. He took no notice of her repeated gesture, however; but drew forward a chair, and sat down opposite his mother, leaving the place at her side empty.

The demonstration was unmistakable. For one moment the Princess's lips tightened, but otherwise her face remained unmoved. Waldemar, too, now sat in the full daylight. He again wore his shooting clothes, which, though on this occasion they certainly bore no marks of recent sport, yet betrayed no special care, and were worlds apart from anything approaching a correct equestrian costume. In his left hand, ungloved like its fellow, he held his round hat and whip. His boots were covered with the dust of a two hours' ride, the rider not having thought fit to shake it off; and his very manner of sitting down showed him to be altogether unused to drawing-room etiquette. His mother saw all this at a glance; but she also saw the inflexible defiance with which her son had armed himself. Her task was no easy one, she felt.

"We have grown strangers to one another, Waldemar," she began; "and on this our first meeting, I can hardly expect to receive from you a son's affectionate greeting. From your early childhood I have been forced to give you into other hands. I have never been allowed to exercise a mother's rights, to fulfil a mother's duties towards you."

"I have wanted for nothing at my uncle Witold's," replied Waldemar, curtly; "and I have certainly been more at home there than I should have been in Prince Baratowski's house."

He laid a bitter emphasis on the name which did not escape the Princess.

"Prince Baratowski is dead," said she, gravely. "You are in the presence of his widow."

Waldemar looked up, and appeared now for the first time to notice her mourning garb. "I am sorry for it--for your sake," he answered, coldly.

His mother put the subject from her with a wave of the hand. "Let us say no more. You never knew the Prince, and I cannot expect you to feel any kindliness towards the man who was my husband. I do not disguise from myself that the loss I have sustained, cruel though it has been, has done away with the barrier which stood between, and held us apart. You have always looked on me exclusively as the Princess Baratowska. Perhaps now you will recall to mind that I am also your mother, and your father's widow."

At these last words Waldemar started up so hastily that his chair was thrown to the ground. "I think we had better not touch on that. I have come in order to show you that I am under no restraint, that I do just what I choose. You wished to speak to me--here I am. What is it you want with me?"

All the young man's rough recklessness, his utter disregard of the feelings of others, spoke in these words. The allusion to his father had evidently stung him; but the Princess had now risen in her turn, and was standing opposite him.

"What I want with you? I want to break through that charmed circle which an influence hostile to me has drawn around you. I want to remind you that it is now time for you to see things with your own eyes, to let your own judgment have free play, instead of blindly adopting the views which other people have forced upon you. You have been taught to hate your mother. I have long known it. Try first whether she deserves your hatred, and then decide for yourself. That is what I want with you, my son, since you compel me to answer such a question."

This was said with so much quiet energy, such loftiness of look and tone, that it could not fail to have its effect upon Waldemar. He felt he had insulted his mother; but he felt also that the insult glanced off from her, powerless to wound, and that appeal to his independence had not fallen on deaf ears.

"I bear you no hatred, mother," said he. It was the first time he had pronounced that name.

"But you have no confidence in me," she answered; "yet that is the first thing I must ask of you. It will not be easy to you to put faith in me, I know. From your earliest childhood the seeds of distrust have been sown in your soul. Your guardian has done all in his power to alienate you from me, and to bind you solely to himself. I only fear that he, of all men, was least fitted to bring up the heir of Wilicza!"

Her eyes took a rapid survey of the young man as she spoke, and the look completed her meaning; unfortunately Waldemar understood both look and words, and was roused by them to a pitch of extreme irritation.

"I will not have a word said against my uncle," he exclaimed, in a sudden outburst of anger. "He has been a second father to me; and if I was only sent for here to listen to attacks against him, I had better go back again at once. We shall never understand each other."

The Princess saw the mistake she had made in giving the reins to her animosity against that detested guardian, but the thing was done. To yield now was to compromise her whole authority. She felt that on no account must she recede; yet everything depended on Waldemar's staying.

Suddenly help came to her from a quarter whence she least expected it. At this critical moment a side door was opened, and Wanda, who had just returned from a walk with her father, and had no idea that a visitor had arrived in her absence, came into the room.

Waldemar, who had turned to leave it, stopped all at once, as though rooted to the ground. A flame of fire seemed to shoot up into his face, so rapid, so deep was the crimson that dyed it. The anger and defiance which an instant before had shone in his eyes, vanished as by enchantment; and, for a moment, he remained transfixed, with his eyes riveted on the young Countess. The latter was about to retire, on seeing a stranger in her aunt's company; but when the stranger turned his face towards her, a half-uttered exclamation of surprise escaped her also. She, however, preserved all her presence of mind; and, far from being overtaken by any confusion, was apparently seized by a violent temptation to laugh which it cost her much trouble to subdue. It was too late to go back now, so she shut the door and went up to her aunt.

"My son, Waldemar Nordeck; my niece, Countess Morynska," said the Princess, looking first at Waldemar with considerable astonishment, and then casting a questioning glance at the young girl.

Wanda had quickly overcome the childish impulse to merriment, remembering that she was now a grown-up lady. Her graceful courtesy was so correct that the severest mistress of deportment could have found no fault with it; but there came a traitorous little twitch about the youthful lips again as Waldemar returned her salutation by a movement which he no doubt intended for a bow, but which certainly had a very strange effect. Once again his mother scanned his face, as though she would read his most secret thoughts. "It seems you know your cousin already?" she said, with a peculiar emphasis. Her allusion to the relationship between himself and the new-comer only increased the young man's discomfiture.

"I don't know," he replied, in extreme embarrassment. "I did ... certainly ... some days ago ..."

"Herr Nordeck was so good as to act as my guide when I lost my way in the forest," interposed Wanda. "It was the day before yesterday, when we made our excursion to the Beech Holm."

At the time the Princess had described this walk as a rebellious and highly improper freak; but now she had not a word of blame for it. Her tone was almost sweet as she replied--

"Indeed! a singular meeting. But why behave to each other as though you were strangers? Between relations etiquette need not be so strictly observed. You may certainly offer your cousin your hand, Wanda."

Wanda obeyed, holding out her hand in a frank, unembarrassed way. Cousin Leo was already gallant enough to kiss it when she gave it him in token of reconciliation after a quarrel; his elder brother, unfortunately, appeared to possess none of this chivalry. He took the delicate little fingers, shyly and hesitatingly at first, as though he hardly dared to touch them, then all at once pressed them so tightly between his own that the girl almost cried out with the pain. Of this new cousin she knew as little as Leo, nay, still less; she had therefore looked forward to his announced visit with proportionable curiosity. Her disenchantment knew no bounds.

The Princess had stood by, a silent though keen observer. Her eye never quitted Waldemar's face.

"So you met each other in the forest?" said she again. "Was no name mentioned on either side to enlighten you?"

"Well, I unluckily took Herr Nordeck for a wood demon," burst out Wanda, paying no heed to her aunt's grave, reproving glance, "and he did his best to strengthen me in the belief. You can't imagine, aunt, what an interesting interview we had. During the half hour we were together, he never let me find out whether he really belonged to the present race of men, or to the old fabulous ages. Under these circumstances, a formal introduction was out of the question, of course."

This little speech was made in a tone of impertinent, half-mocking jest; but, strangely enough, Waldemar, who had recently shown himself so irritable, did not appear in the least offended by it. His eyes were still fixed on the young girl, and he hardly seemed to hear her stinging little pleasantries.

The Princess, however, thought it time to put a stop to Wanda's pertness. She turned to her son with calm as perfect as though the previous scene between them had never taken place.

"You have not yet seen your brother, Waldemar, nor your uncle either; I will take you to them. You will spend the day with us?" She spoke the last words in an airy, assured tone, as though his staying were a thing of course.

"If you wish it." This was said irresolutely, hesitatingly, but with none of the fierce defiance of his former answers. Evidently Waldemar no longer thought of going.

"Certainly I wish it. You would not leave us so abruptly on the occasion of your first visit. Come, dear Wanda."

Young Nordeck wavered yet a moment; but as Wanda obeyed the summons, his decision was taken. He laid the hat and riding-whip, to which he had hitherto persistently clung, down on the chair he had a little while before upset in his sudden blaze of anger, and meekly followed the ladies as they led the way. A scarcely perceptible smile of triumph played about the Princess's lips. She was too clever an observer not to know that she had the game in her own hands. It is true that accident had befriended her.

CHAPTER V.

Count Morynski and Leo were together in the drawing-room. They had already heard from Pawlick of Waldemar's arrival, but had not wished to disturb the first meeting between mother and son. The Count looked a little surprised, as Wanda, whom he believed to be in her room, came in with them; but he did not put the question which was on his lips. For the moment young Nordeck engaged his whole attention. The Princess took her younger son by the hand, and led him to the elder. "You do not know each other yet," she said, significantly; "but to-day, at last, the satisfaction of bringing you together is granted me. Leo is ready to meet you with a brother's love, Waldemar. Let me hope that he may find the same in you."

Waldemar, with a rapid glance, took the measure of the new-found brother standing before him. There was no hostility in his manner now. The young Prince's handsome face took him captive on the spot, so much was evident; perhaps, too, he had been won over to a milder mood by that which had passed, for when Leo, still with some shy reserve, held out his hand to him, he grasped it warmly.

Count Morynski now drew near to address some words of courtesy to his sister's son. The latter answered chiefly in monosyllables, and the conversation, which, on Waldemar's account, was carried on exclusively in German, would have been forced and languid, had not the Princess guided it with truly masterly tact. She steered clear of every rock ahead, she avoided every painful allusion, and skilfully contrived that her brother, her sons, and Wanda should by turns be drawn into the general talk, so as, for half an hour, really to conjure up an illusion of the most perfect harmony reigning among the different members of the family.

Leo stood close to Waldemar's chair, and the contrast between the brothers was thus brought into strongest relief. The young Prince himself had hardly emerged from boyhood; he no more than his neighbour had yet ripened to man's estate. But how different was the transition here! Waldemar had never appeared to greater disadvantage than by the side of this slender, supple form, where there was symmetry in every line--by this youthful aristocrat, with his easy, assured bearing, his graceful gestures and ideally beautiful head. Young Nordeck's sharp, angular figure, his irregular features and sombre eyes, looking out from under a tangle of light hair, justified but too fully the mother's feelings, as her gaze rested on them both--on her darling, her handsome boy, so full of life and animation, and on that other, who was also her son, but to whom she was linked by no single outward trait, by no impulse of the heart. There was something in Waldemar's manner to-day which showed him in a more than usually unfavourable light. The short, imperious tone that was habitual to him, though unattractive enough, was yet consistent with his general appearance, and lent to it a character of its own. This tone he had maintained throughout the interview with his mother; but, from the moment of the young Countess Morynska's entrance, it had deserted him. For the first time in his life he appeared shy and under restraint; for the first time he seemed to feel the influence of society in every way superior to himself, and the novelty of his position robbed him, not only of his defiance, but visibly of his self-confidence also. He had come prepared to face a hostile camp, and his resolution had armed him with a certain rugged dignity. Now he had given up the fight, and his dignity had vanished. He was awkward, abstracted, and Morynski's surprised look seemed now and then to ask whether this really could be the Waldemar as to whom such alarming reports had been made. When they had sat and talked for about half an hour, Pawlick came in and announced that dinner was ready.

"Leo, you must resign your office to your brother, and let him take Wanda in to-day," said the Princess, as she rose and, passing her hand through her brother's arm, went on first with him to the dining-room.

"Well," asked the Count in a low voice, and in Polish, "how do matters stand? What was the result of the interview?"

The Princess only smiled. She gave one rapid glance back at Waldemar, who was just going up to Wanda, and then answered, also in Polish, "Make your mind easy. He will comply. I will answer for it."

It was nearly evening when young Nordeck set out on his homeward journey. Leo went with his brother to the gate of the villa, and then returned to the drawing-room. The Princess and Count Morynski were no longer there, but Wanda still stood on the balcony, watching the departing horseman.

"Good gracious, what a monster that Waldemar is!" cried Wanda to her cousin as he came in. "However did you manage to keep serious all the time, Leo? Look here, I have nearly bitten my handkerchief to pieces, trying to hide that I was laughing; but I can't keep it down any longer, or I shall suffocate!" and, falling on to one of the balcony chairs, Wanda broke into a violent burst of merriment, which plainly showed what severe restraint she must hitherto have placed on herself.

"We were prepared to find Waldemar odd," said Leo, half apologetically. "After all we had heard of him, I, to tell the truth, expected he would be much rougher and more disagreeable than he is."

"Oh, you only saw him in company dress to-day," jested Wanda; "but when one has had the good fortune to admire him, as I did, in all his primeval grandeur, it is hard to recover from the overpowering effect of the savage's first appearance. I yet think with awe of our meeting in the forest."

"Yes, you owe me an account of that meeting still," put in Leo. "So it was Waldemar who showed you the way to the Beech Holm the day before yesterday? I have gathered this much from your discourse, but I really do not understand why you make such a mystery of the matter."

"I only did that to torment you," replied the young lady with great candour. "You grew so angry when I told you of my interesting adventure with a stranger. You naturally believed some fascinating cavalier had escorted me, and I left you in that belief. Now, Leo"--here her gaiety got the better of her again--"now you see it was not a very dangerous affair."

"Well, yes, I see that," assented the young Prince, laughing; "but Waldemar must have had some knightly instinct, or he would not have condescended to act as your guide."

"Possibly; but I shall remember his escort as long as I live. Just fancy, Leo; all in a minute I lost the path I had so often taken, and which I thought I knew so well. At every attempt to find it I got deeper and deeper into the forest, until at last I strayed into regions quite unknown to me. I could not even tell in which direction the Beech Holm or the sea lay, for there was not a breath of wind, and not a murmur of the waves reached me. I stood still, not knowing what to do, and was just on the point of turning back, when something broke through the bushes as violently as though the woods were being beaten for a battue. Suddenly the figure of a man stood before me, whom I really could take for none other than the wood-demon in person. He was up to his knees in mud. A freshly killed doe was thrown over his shoulder, quite regardless of the fact that blood was dripping from the animal down on to his clothes and staining them. The enormous yellow mane, which serves him for hair, had been roughly used by the bushes, and was hanging down over his face. He stood there with a gun in his hand, and a growling, snarling dog at his side, who showed his teeth as he looked at me. I ask you if it was possible to take this monster of the woods for a human being bent on sport."

"You were in a tremendous fright, I suppose," said Leo, banteringly.

Wanda tossed her head. "In a fright? I? You ought to know by this time that I am not timid. Another girl would have probably fled precipitately, but I kept my ground, and asked the way to the Beech Holm. Though I repeated the question twice, I got no answer. Instead of replying, the spectre stood as though rooted to the ground, and stared at me with its great wild eyes without uttering a sound. Then I did begin to feel uncomfortable, and turned to go, when in a moment, with two strides, he was at my side, pointing to the right, and showing an unmistakable intention of acting as my guide."

"But not by pantomime alone?" interposed Leo. "Waldemar spoke to you, surely."

"Oh yes, he spoke; he honoured me in all with six or seven words, certainly not more. On joining company with him, I heard something like 'We must take to the right;' and on parting, 'Yonder lies the Beech Holm.' During the half-hour's interval, there reigned an impressive silence which I did not venture to break. And what a way it was we took! First we went straight into the very midst of the thicket, my amiable guide walking on ahead of me, trampling and crushing down the bushes like a bear. I believe he destroyed half the forest to make some sort of a passage for me. Then we came to a clearing, then to a bog. I expected we should plunge right into it; but, marvellous to say, we stopped on the brink. All this time not a word passed between us; but my singular companion stuck close to my side, and whenever I looked up I met his eyes, which seemed to grow more and more uncanny every minute. I now inclined decidedly to the opinion that he had risen from one of the ancient tumuli, and was prowling about in search of some human being whom he would straightway drag off to one of the old heathen altars, and there immolate. Just as I was preparing for my approaching end, I saw the blue sea glistening through the branches, and at once recognised the neighbourhood of the Beech Holm. My wonderful cavalier came to a halt, fixed his great eyes on me once more, as though he would eat me up on the spot, and seemed hardly to hear that I was thanking him. Next minute I was on the shore, where I caught sight of your boat. Think of my astonishment when I came in to-day and found my wood-demon--my giant of primeval times, whom I thought long since buried in some deep cavern of the earth--in my aunt's reception room, and when the said ghostly vision was introduced to me as 'Cousin Waldemar.' It is true, he conducted himself in the most approved style; he even took me in to dinner. But, goodness me! how funnily he set about it! I believe it was the first time in his life he ever offered a lady his arm. Did you see how he bowed, how he behaved at table? Don't be offended, Leo; but this new brother of yours belongs rightly to the wilderness, and to the furthest depths of it, too! There he has at least something awe-inspiring about him; but when he comes out among civilised men, he simply convulses one with laughter. And to think that he should be the future lord of Wilicza!"

At heart, Leo shared this opinion; but he thought it incumbent on him to take his brother's part. He felt how infinitely superior to young Nordeck he himself was, both in appearance and bearing, and this made it easy to be generous.

"But it is not Waldemar's fault that his education has been so entirely neglected," said he; "mamma thinks that his guardian has let him run wild systematically."

"Well, all I can say is, he is a monster," decided the young lady. "I herewith solemnly declare that if I have to go in to dinner with him again, I will impose a voluntary fast on myself, and not appear at table."

During their talk, Wanda's handkerchief, with which she had been fanning herself, had slipped down, and now lay at some distance below them in the ivy which crept round the balcony. Leo noticed this, and gallantly bent to reach it. He was obliged almost to go down on his knees. In this position, he picked up the handkerchief, and restored it to his cousin. Instead of thanking him, she burst out into a peal of laughter. The young Prince sprang to his feet.

"You are laughing?"

"Oh, not at you, Leo. It only struck me how unutterably comic your brother would have looked in such a situation."

"Waldemar? Yes, indeed; but you will hardly have that satisfaction. He will never bend the knee before a lady, certainly not before you."

"Certainly not before me!" repeated Wanda, in a tone of pique. "Oh, you think I am still such a child, it is not worth while kneeling to me. I have a great mind to prove to you the contrary."

"How?" asked Leo, laughing. "By bringing Waldemar to your feet, perhaps?"

The girl pouted. "And suppose I undertook to do it?"

"Well, try your power on my brother, if you like," said he, touchily. "Perhaps that will give you a better notion of what you can do, and what you can't."

Wanda sprang up with the eagerness of a child who sees a new toy before it.

"I agree. What shall we wager?"

"But it must be done in earnest, Wanda. It must not be a mere act of politeness, like mine just now."

"Of course not," assented the young Countess. "You laugh; you think such a thing is quite beyond the range of possibility. Well, we shall see who wins. You shall behold Waldemar on his knees before we leave. I only make one condition; you must give him no hint of it. I think it would rouse all the bear in him if he were to hear we had presumed to make his lordship the object of a wager."

"I won't say a word," declared Leo, carried away by her mischievous eagerness, and joining in the frolic. "We shan't escape an outburst of his Berserker wrath, though, when you laugh out at him at last, and tell him the truth. But perhaps you mean to say yes?"

Both the children--for children they still were with their respective sixteen and seventeen years--joked and made merry over their conceit, as such thoughtless young creatures will. Accustomed constantly to tease and torment each other, they had no misgivings about including a third person in their sport. They never reflected how little Waldemar's stern, unbending character was suited to such trifling, or to what bitter earnest he might turn the play imagined by them in the foolish gaiety of their hearts.

CHAPTER VI.

Some weeks had passed. The summer was drawing to an end, and all hands at Altenhof were busy with the harvest. The Squire, who had spent his whole morning in the fields, looking after the men and directing the work, had come home weary and exhausted, and was settling himself down for his well-earned after-dinner nap. Whilst making his preparations for it, he looked round every now and then, half angrily, half admiringly, at his adopted son, who was standing by the window dressed in his usual riding gear, waiting for his horse to be brought round.

"So you are really going over to C---- in the heat of the day?" asked Herr Witold. "I wish you joy of your two hours' ride. There is not a bit of shade all the way. You will be getting a sunstroke--but you don't seem able to live now without paying your respects to your mother at least three or four times a week."

The young man frowned. "I can't refuse to go if my mother wishes to see me. Now that we are so near each other she has a right to require that I should pay her some visits."

"Well, she makes a famous use of the right," said Witold; "but I should like to know how she has contrived to turn you into an obedient son. I have tried in vain for nearly twenty years. She managed it in a single day; she certainly always had the knack of governing people."

"You ought to know that I do not allow myself to be governed, uncle," replied Waldemar, in a tone of irritation. "My mother met me in a conciliatory spirit, and I neither can nor will repulse her advances roughly, as you did whilst I was under your guardianship."

"They tell you often enough that you are under it no longer, I'll be bound," interrupted his uncle. "You have laid great stress on that for the last few weeks; but it is quite unnecessary, my boy. You have, I am sorry to say, never done anything but just what pleased you, and often acted in opposition to my will. Your coming of age is a mere form, for me, at least, though not for the Baratowskis. They best know what use they mean to make of it, and why they are continually reminding you of your freedom."

"What is the good of these perpetual suspicions?" cried Waldemar, in a passion. "Am I to give up all intercourse with my relations for no other reason but because you dislike them?"

"I wish you could put your dear relations' tenderness to the test," said Witold, ironically. "They would not trouble themselves so much about you, if you did not happen to be master of Wilicza. Now, now, don't fly out again. We have had quarrels enough about it of late, I am not going to spoil my nap to-day. This confounded bathing season will be over soon, and then we shall be quit of them all."

A short pause followed, Waldemar pacing impatiently up and down the room.

"I can't think what they are about in the stables. I ordered Norman to be saddled--the men seem to have gone to sleep over it."

"You are in a terrible hurry to get away, are not you?" asked the Squire, drily. "I really believe they have given you some philtre over in C----, which will not allow you to rest anywhere else. You can hardly bear to wait until it is time for you to be in the saddle."

Waldemar made no reply. He began to whistle and to crack his whip in the air.

"The Princess is going back to Paris, I presume?" asked Witold all at once.

"I don't know. It is not decided yet where Leo is to finish his studies. His mother will no doubt be guided by that in the choice of her future home."

"I wish he would go and study in Constantinople, and that his lady mother would be guided by that, and take herself off with him to the land of the Turks; then, at all events, they could not be back for some time," said Herr Witold, spitefully. "That young Baratowski must be a perfect prodigy of learning. You are always talking of his studies."

"Leo has learned a great deal more than I, yet he is four years younger," said Waldemar, in a grumbling voice.

"His mother has kept him to his books, no doubt. That boy has kept the same tutor all the while, you may be sure; while six have decamped from here, and the seventh only stays on with you because he can't very well help himself."

"And why was not I kept to my books?" asked young Nordeck, suddenly, crossing his arms defiantly and going up close to his guardian. The latter stared at him in astonishment.

"I do believe the boy is going to reproach me with giving him his own way in everything," he cried, in wrathful indignation.

"No," replied Waldemar, briefly. "You meant well, uncle; but you don't know how I feel when I see that Leo is before me in everything, and hear constantly of the necessity of further advantages for him, while I stand by and ... But there shall be an end of it. I'll go to the University, too."

Herr Witold, in his fright, nearly let fall the sofa cushion he was comfortably adjusting.

"To the University?" he repeated.

"Yes, certainly. Dr. Fabian has been talking of it for months."

"And for months you have refused to go.

"That was before ... I have changed my mind now. Leo is to go to the University next year, and if he is ready for it at eighteen, it must be high time for me to be there. I am not going to be outdone always by my younger brother. I shall talk to Dr. Fabian about it to-morrow. And now I'll go round to the stables myself, and see whether Norman is saddled at last. My patience is pretty well worn out."

With these words he took up his hat from the table, and hurried out of the room, full of eagerness to be gone. Herr Witold sat still on the sofa, holding the cushion. He did not think of laying it straight now. It was all over with his noonday rest.

"What has come to the boy, Doctor? What have you been doing to the boy?" he cried, angrily, as that inoffensive individual came into the room.

"I?" asked the Doctor, in alarm. "Nothing! Why, he has but just left you.

"Well, well, I don't mean you exactly," said the Squire, peevishly. "I mean the Baratowski people. There has been no managing him since they got him into their hands. Just fancy, he says now he wants to go to the University."

"No? Really?" cried the Doctor, in delight.

This reply roused Herr Witold to still greater ire.

"Yes, it will be a matter of rejoicing to you," he grumbled. "You will be enchanted to get away from here, and to leave me at Altenhof without a soul to keep me company."

"You know that I have always advocated his going to the University. I have unfortunately never found a hearing; and, if it really be the Princess who has prevailed upon Waldemar to take this step, I can only regard her influence as most beneficial."

"Deuce take her beneficial influence!" stormed the Squire, flinging the unhappy sofa cushion into the middle of the room. "We shall soon see what it all means. Something has happened to the boy. He wanders about as if he were dreaming in broad daylight, takes no interest in anything, and when one asks him a question he answers at cross purposes. When he goes out shooting, he comes back with an empty bag--he, who never used to miss a shot; and now he has all at once taken to study, and there is no getting him from his books. I must find out what has brought about this change in him, and you will have to help me, Doctor. You must go over to C---- one of these days."

"No, for Heaven's sake, no!" protested Dr. Fabian. "What should I do there?"

"See how the land lies," said the Squire, emphatically, "and bring me back word. Something is going on there, of that I am certain. I can't go over myself, for I am, so to speak, on a war-footing with the Princess, and when we two come together there is sure to be a row. I can't tolerate her spiteful ways, and she can't put up with my plain speaking; but you, Doctor, stand as a neutral in the business. You are the right man."

The Doctor with all his might resisted the requirement made of him.

"But I understand nothing of such matters," he complained. "You know, too, how absent and ill at ease I am in my intercourse with strangers. I should be especially so with the Princess. Besides, Waldemar would never consent to my going with him."

"It is all of no use," interrupted Witold, dictatorially. "Go over to C---- you must. You are the only creature in whom I have confidence, Doctor. You won't desert me now?" With this he broke into such a flood of argument, reproaches, and entreaties, that the poor Doctor, half stunned by so much eloquence, surrendered at last, and promised all that was asked of him.

The sound of hoofs was heard outside, and Waldemar, already mounted, trotted past the window, then gave his horse the rein, and galloped away without once looking back.

"Off he goes," said Witold, half grumbling, and yet brimming over anew with admiration for his adopted son. "Just see how the boy sits his horse. They might be cast in bronze! and it is no trifle to keep the Norman well in hand."

"Waldemar has a singular mania for riding young horses which are only half broken in," said the Doctor, anxiously. "I cannot understand why he has selected Norman for his favourite. He is the most unmanageable, the most restive, animal in the stables."

"That is the very reason," returned the Squire, laughing. "You know he must have something to curb and master, or he finds no pleasure in the game. But now, come here, Doctor; we must consider about this mission of yours. You must set to work diplomatically, you know."

So saying, he grasped the Doctor's arm and dragged him off to the sofa. Poor Fabian went docilely enough. He had resigned himself to his fate, and only murmured occasionally, in doleful accents, "I a diplomatist, Herr Witold? Mercy on me! la diplomatist!"

The Baratowski family had never taken much part in the gay doings of the C---- season, and latterly they had withdrawn from them more and more. Waldemar, who now paid them such frequent visits, always found the family party alone. Count Morynski alone was wanting to it. He had left a few days before the scene above described. It had been his intention to take his daughter away with him; but the Princess discovered that a longer stay at the seaside was essential to Wanda's health, and prevailed on her brother to consent to a prolonged separation. He yielded to his sister's wish, and set out on his solitary way towards Rakowicz, where business matters required his presence.

In spite of the noonday heat, young Nordeck had ridden over from Altenhof at full speed. On his arrival he entered the Princess's room, where he found her sitting at her writing-table. Had Leo come to her thus, glowing and overheated, she would certainly have met him with some word of remonstrance, of motherly solicitude; but Waldemar's appearance, though possibly not unnoticed by her, excited no remark.

It was a singular fact that, although mother and son now saw each other so frequently, no intimacy had taken root between them. The Princess always treated Waldemar with the utmost consideration, and he strove to tone down the harshness of his demeanour towards her; but in this mutual endeavour to preserve a good understanding, there was not a spark of warm, genuine feeling. They could not cross the invisible gulf which lay between them, though, for the time being, an extraneous power had bridged it over. The greeting on either side was just as cool as on the occasion of their first meeting; but Waldemar's eyes now roved round the parlour with an uneasy, questioning glance.

"You are looking for Leo and Wanda?" said the Princess. "They have gone down to the shore, and will wait for you there. You have planned a boating excursion together, I think?"

"Yes. I will go and look for the others at once." Waldemar made a hasty movement towards the door, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.

"I must claim your attention for a few minutes first. I have something important to discuss with you."

"Won't it do later?" asked Waldemar, impatiently. "I should like before ..."

"I particularly wish to speak to you alone," the Princess interrupted him. "You will still be in time for the sail. You can all very well put it off for a quarter of an hour."

Young Nordeck looked annoyed at being thus detained, and obeyed with evident reluctance when invited to sit down. There seemed little prospect of his attention being given to the matter in hand, for his eyes wandered off continually to the window near him which opened on to the shore.

"Our stay in C---- is drawing to an end," said the Princess; "we must soon begin to think of our departure."

Waldemar gave a start almost of dismay.

"So soon? September promises to be fine, why not spend it here?"

"I cannot, on Wanda's account. I can hardly expect my brother to do without his darling any longer. It was very unwillingly, and only by my especial wish, that he consented to leave her behind. I promised him in return that I would myself take her to Rakowicz."

"Rakowicz is not far from Wilicza, is it?" asked Waldemar, quickly.

"Only two or three miles; about half as far as Altenhof from this."

The young man was silent. He looked anxiously through the window again: the shore seemed to have an unusual interest for him to-day.

"Speaking of Wilicza," said the Princess, negligently, "you will be taking possession of your property soon, I suppose, now that you are of age. When do you think of going there?"

"It was fixed for next spring," said Waldemar, absently, still absorbed by his outdoor observations. "I wanted to stay on with my uncle through the winter; but all that will be changed now, for I mean to go to the University."

His mother bent her head approvingly.

"I can but applaud such a resolution. I have never disguised from you that the essentially practical education you have received at your guardian's has been, in my opinion, too one-sided. For such a position as yours, some higher culture is indispensable."

"I should rather like to see Wilicza first, though." Waldemar made a dash at his object. "I have not been there since my childhood, and ... You will make a long stay at Rakowicz, will you not?"

"I do not know," replied the Princess. "For the present I shall certainly accept the refuge offered by my brother to me and to my son. Time will show whether we must make a permanent claim on his generosity."

Young Nordeck looked up. "Refuge? Generosity? What do you mean, mother?"

The Princess's lips twitched nervously, the only sign she gave that the step she was about to take was one painful to her. With this exception her face remained unmoved as she answered--

"Hitherto I have concealed the state of our circumstances from the world, and I intend still to do so. To you, I neither can nor will make a secret of our position. Yes, I am compelled to seek a refuge with my brother. You know something of the events which happened during the term of my second marriage. I stood at my husband's side when the storm of revolution swept him down. I followed him into banishment, and for ten long years I shared his exile. Our fortune was sacrificed to the cause; for some time there has been a hopeless discrepancy between the claims of our position and the means at our command. A cursory inspection of our affairs, made since the Prince's death, has convinced me that I must give up the struggle. We are at the end of our resources."

Waldemar would have spoken. His mother raised her hand to silence him.

"You can understand what it costs me to make these disclosures to you, and that I never should have entered on the subject if I myself had been alone in question; but as a mother, I must look to my son's interests. Every other consideration must give way to that. Leo stands on the threshold of life, of his career. I do not fear for him the privations of poverty, but its humiliations, for I know that he will not be able to bear them. Fate has willed it that you should be rich; henceforth, your wealth will be at your unlimited disposal. I confide your brother's future to your generosity, and to your sense of honour."

Any other woman would have felt, and shown she felt, it keenly mortifying thus to sue for help from the son of the man she had fled from in scorn and hatred; but this woman so carried herself that the painful step she had to take was in no degree lowering to her, and wrought no prejudice to her dignity. Her bearing, as she stood before her son, was not that of a supplicant. She made appeal neither to his filial feeling, nor to an affection which, as she well knew, did not exist. The mother with her rights stepped, for the time being, into the background. She did not take her stand on them; but she demanded from the elder brother's sense of justice that he should befriend the younger--and it soon appeared that she had not erred in her judgment of Waldemar. He sprang up quickly.

"And you only tell me this now, today? Why did I not hear of it sooner?"

The Princess's eyes met his gravely and steadily.

"What answer would you have made me if, on our first meeting after our long separation, I had made this communication to you?"

Waldemar looked down; he very well remembered the insulting manner in which he had asked his mother what it was she wanted with him.

"You are mistaken in me," he replied, hastily. "I should never have consented to your seeking help from any one but me. What! I am to be master of Wilicza and allow my mother and brother to live in a state of dependence! You are mistaken in me, mother; I have not deserved such distrust!"

"I was not distrustful of you, my son, but only of that influence which has guided you so far, and may perhaps be your guide even now. I do not even know whether your friends will permit you to offer us an asylum."

Again she pricked him with a goad which never failed in its effect, and which the mother was always ready to apply at the right moment. As usual, it stung the young man's pride into arms.

"I think I have shown you that I can assert my own independence," he replied, shortly. "Now tell me, what am I to do? I am ready for anything."

The Princess felt she was about to hazard a bold stroke, but she went on steadily, straight to her aim.

"We can only accept your help in one form, so that it shall not be made a humiliation to us," said she. "You are master of Wilicza--would it not seem natural that your mother and brother should be your guests in your own house?"

Waldemar started. At the mention of Wilicza, the old suspicion and distrust reared their heads anew. All the warnings he had heard from his guardian against his mother's plans recurred to his memory. The Princess saw this, and parried the danger with masterly skill.

"I only care for the place on account of its being near Rakowicz," she said, indifferently. "From thence I could keep up a constant intercourse with Wanda."

Near Rakowicz! constant intercourse with its inhabitants! That decided the question. The young man's cheeks flushed crimson as he replied--

"Arrange it just as you like. I shall agree to everything. I am not going to stay permanently at Wilicza just at present; but I will take you there, at any rate--and there are long holidays at the University every year."

The Princess held out her hand to him.

"I thank you, Waldemar, in my own name, and in Leo's."

Her thanks were sincerely meant, but there was no warmth or heartiness in them, and Waldemar's reply was equally cool.

"Pray don't, mother; you make me feel ashamed. The thing is settled--and now I can go to the shore at last, I suppose."

He seemed most desirous of escaping, and his mother detained him no longer. She knew too well to whom she owed her victory. Standing at the window, she watched the young man as he strode hastily along the garden walk towards the shore; then, turning to her desk again, she sat down to finish a letter she had been writing to her brother.

The letter was just completed, and the Princess was in the act of sealing it, when Leo made his appearance. He looked almost as heated as his brother had been previously; but, in his case, it was evidently some inner disturbance which sent the blood to his temples. With a frowning brow and lips tightly set, he drew near his mother, who looked up in surprise.

"What is the matter, Leo? Why do you come alone? Did Waldemar not find you and Wanda?"

"Oh, to be sure. He came to us a quarter of an hour ago," said Leo, in an agitated tone.

"And where is he now?"

"He has gone out for a sail with Wanda."

"Alone?"

"Yes, all alone."

"You know very well I do not approve of such doings," said the Princess, much annoyed. "If, now and then, I trust Wanda to you, that is quite a different thing. You have been brought up together, and are therefore entitled to treat each other as brother and sister. Waldemar stands in quite a different relation to her, and moreover--I do not choose that they should thus be left alone together. The boating excursion was planned by you all in common. Why did you not remain with the others?"

"Because I will not always stay where I am not wanted!" exclaimed Leo. "Because it is no pleasure to me to see Waldemar following Wanda about with his eyes, and behaving as if she were the only creature in existence."

The Princess pressed the seal on her letter.

"I have told you before what I think of these foolish fits of jealousy, Leo. Are you beginning with them again already?"

"Mamma!" The young Prince came up to the writing table with flashing eyes. "Do you not see, or will you not see, that Waldemar is in love with your niece--that he worships her?"

"Well, and what do you do?" asked his mother, leaning back in her chair composedly. "Precisely the same, or at least you fancy so. You cannot expect me to take this boyish enthusiasm into serious account? You and Waldemar are just at the age to need an ideal, and Wanda is the only young girl with whom you have been thrown in contact so far. Fortunately, she is still child enough to look on it all as a sort of game, and it is for that reason alone I allow it to go on. If she were to begin to take a more serious view of the matter, I should be obliged to interfere and restrict your intercourse to narrower limits. But, if I know anything of Wanda, the case will not arise. She plays with you both, and laughs at you both. So indulge yet awhile in your romance, young people! It will do your brother no harm to practise a little gallantry. He needs it much, I am sorry to say!"

The smile which accompanied these words was truly insulting to a youthful passion--it said so plainly, 'mere child's play.' Leo restrained his indignation with much difficulty.

"I wish you would talk to Waldemar in that tone of his 'boyish enthusiasm,'" he replied, with suppressed vehemence. "He would not take it so quietly."

"I should not disguise from him, any more than from you, that I look upon the matter as a piece of youthful folly. If, five or six years hence, you speak to me of your love to Wanda, or if Waldemar tells me of his, I shall attach some importance to your feelings. For the present, you can safely play the part of your cousin's faithful knights--always on condition that no disputes arise between you on the subject."

"They have arisen already," declared Leo. "I have just had some very sharp words with Waldemar. That was why I gave up the sail. I won't bear it. He claims Wanda's company and conversation altogether for himself, and I won't stand his imperious, dictatorial ways any longer either. I shall take every opportunity now of letting him see it."

"You will not do that," interrupted his mother. "I am more desirous now than ever that there should be a good understanding between you, for we are going with Waldemar to Wilicza."

"To Wilicza!" cried Leo, in a fury; "and I am to be his guest there--to be under him, perhaps! No, that I will never consent to; I will owe Waldemar nothing. If it costs me my whole future, I'll accept nothing from him!"

The Princess preserved her superior calm, but her brow grew dark as she answered--

"If you are willing to set your whole future at stake for a mere whim, I am still here to watch over your interests. Besides, it is not merely a question of you or of me. There are other and higher considerations which make a sojourn at Wilicza desirable for me, and I have no intention of allowing my plans to be disturbed by your childish jealousy. You know I should never ask of you anything that could compromise your dignity; and you know, too, that I am accustomed to see my will obeyed. I tell you, we are going to Wilicza, and you will treat your brother with the regard and courtesy I show him myself. I require obedience from you, Leo."

The young Prince knew that tone full well. He knew that when his mother assumed it she meant to have her way at any cost; but on this occasion a mighty spur urged him to resistance. If he ventured no reply in words, his face betrayed that he was inclined to rebel in deeds, and that he would hardly condescend so far as to show his brother the required courtesy.

"I will take care that no provocation to these disputes shall arise in future," went on the Princess. "We shall leave this in a week, and when Wanda goes back to her father you will necessarily see less of her. As to this sail, tête-à-tête with Waldemar, of which I altogether disapprove, it shall most decidedly be the last."

So saying, she rang, and, on Pawlick's appearing, gave him the letter to take to the post. It conveyed news to Count Morynski of their intended departure from C----, and informed him that his sister would not at present make a claim on his hospitality, but that the former mistress of Wilicza was about to return to, and take up her residence in, her old home.

CHAPTER VII.

The boat containing Waldemar and the young Countess Morynska sailed merrily before the breeze. The sea was rather rough on that day, and the waves broke foaming against the keel of the little vessel as she shot through them, dashing their spray overboard every now and then, a fact which in no way disturbed the two occupants. Waldemar sat at the helm, with the calm of an experienced steersman; and Wanda, who had placed herself opposite him under the shadow of the sail, seemed to find great enjoyment in the quick, bounding motion of the little craft, and in their rapid onward progress.

"Leo will go and complain of us to my aunt," said she, looking back towards the coast, which they had already left at some distance behind them. "He went away in a great rage, and you were very unkind to him, Waldemar."

"I don't like any one else to take the rudder when I am in the boat," he answered, in a curt, authoritative tone.

"And suppose I wanted to have it?" asked Wanda, mischievously.

He made no reply, but stood up at once, and silently offered her his place.

The young Countess laughed.

"Oh no. It was only to see what you would say. There is no pleasure for me in the sail when I have to think of steering all the while."

Without a word, Waldemar again grasped the rudder which had been the nominal subject of dispute between him and Leo, though the real cause of their quarrel lay elsewhere.

"Where are we going?" Wanda began again, after a short pause.

"To the Beech Holm, I think. That was what we had settled."

"Won't it be rather far for to-day?" asked the girl, a little anxiously.

"With the wind in our favour we shall be there in half an hour, and if I work the oars well it will not take us much longer to get back. You wanted to see the sunset from the Beech Holm, you know."

Wanda resisted no further, though a vague feeling of uneasiness came over her. Heretofore Leo had been the constant companion of the young people in their excursions by sea and land; this was the first time they had been out alone together. Young as Wanda was, she would have been no woman not to discover, before Waldemar's second visit was over, what had made him so shy and confused on the first. He was incapable of dissimulation, and his eyes spoke a language all too plain, though he had as yet betrayed himself by no word. He was still more reserved and monosyllabic with Wanda than with the others; but, notwithstanding this, she knew her power over him well enough--knew how to use, and occasionally to misuse it; for to her the whole thing was a sport, and nothing more. It pleased her that she could rule this obstinate, masterful nature with a word, nay, even with a look; it flattered her to feel herself the object of a certainly somewhat mute and eccentric, but yet passionate homage; above all, it delighted her to see how angry Leo grew over the matter. Really to give the preference to his elder brother never once entered her mind. Waldemar's person and manners were to the last degree distasteful to her. She thought his appearance 'horrid;' his lack of courtesy shocked, and his conversation wearied her. Love had not made young Nordeck more amiable. He showed her none of those chivalrous attentions in which Leo, in spite of his youth, was already an adept. He seemed, on the contrary, to yield with reluctance to a charm from which he was unable to escape; yet everything in him bore witness to the irresistible power which this first passion had gained over him.

The Beech Holm must probably one day have been a little islet, as its name would indicate; now it was only a thickly wooded hill, joined to the shore by a narrow strip of land, or rather by a little chain of sandy downs, whereby access could be had to it on foot. Notwithstanding its beauty, the place was but little frequented. It was too secluded and too distant for the brilliant, gaiety-loving visitors of C----, whose excursions were generally made to some of the neighbouring villages along the coast. To-day, as usual, there was no one on the Holm when the boat came to land. Waldemar jumped out, whilst his companion, without waiting for help, sprang lightly on to the white sand, and ran off up the hill.

The Beech Holm well deserved its name. The whole wood, which lined the shore for nearly a mile, showed nowhere so many or such fine trees of this species as were gathered together on this spot of earth. Here mighty old beeches stood, spreading their giant branches far over the green turf, and over the grey, weather-beaten fragments of stone which lay scattered here and there, the relics of heathen times--tradition said of some ancient place of sacrifice. At the landing-place the trees stood back on either side, and the broad, beautiful sea lay as in a frame, its deep-blue plain stretching away far as the eye could reach. No shore, no island obstructed the view, no sail rose on the horizon, nothing but the sea in all its grandeur, and the Beech Holm, lying there so solitary and world-forgotten, it might really have been a little islet lost in mid-ocean.

Wanda had taken off her straw hat with its plain black ribbon, and sat down on one of the moss-grown stones. She still wore half-mourning for the late Prince Baratowski. Her white dress was only relieved by a black knot here and there, and a little black scarf was thrown round her shoulders. This sombre hue on her white garments gave to the girl's appearance a subdued and softened tinge which was not habitual to it. She looked infinitely charming as she sat thus with folded hands, gazing meditatively out over the sea.

Waldemar, who had taken a seat by her side on the enormous root of an old beech, seemed to be of this opinion, for he entertained himself exclusively with looking at her. For him the scenery around existed not. He started as from a dream when Wanda, pointing to her stone seat, said jestingly--"I suppose this is one of your old Runic stones?"

Waldemar shrugged his shoulders. "You must ask my tutor, Dr. Fabian, about that. He is more at home in the first century of our era than in the present. He would give you a learned and lengthy dissertation on Runic stones, dolmens, tumuli, and the like. It would afford him the greatest pleasure."

"Oh no; for goodness' sake!" laughed Wanda; "but, if Dr. Fabian has such an enthusiastic love for antiquity, I wonder he has not instilled a taste for it into you. It seems to me you are quite indifferent on the subject."

The young man's face took a most disdainful expression. "What do I care for all their antiquarian nonsense? The woods and fields interest me for the sport they can give me."

"How prosaic!" cried Wanda, indignantly. "So all your thoughts run on your sport! I dare say here on the Beech Holm you are thinking of the bucks and hares which may be hidden in the coverts."

"No," said Waldemar, slowly. "I am not."

"It would be unpardonable with such a prospect before you. Just look at the evening glow out yonder! The waves seem literally to beam with light."

Waldemar followed the direction of her hand with indifferent eyes.

"Yes; that is where they say Vineta went down."

"What went down?"

"Have not you heard? It is an old sea legend. I thought you knew it."

"No; tell me."

"I am a poor story-teller," said Waldemar, deprecatingly. "Ask our fisher-folk about it. That old boatman yonder would give you a far better and more complete account of it than I can."

"But I want to hear it from you," persisted Wanda. "I will; so go on."

A frown gathered on Waldemar's brow. The command had been too imperative.

"You will?" he repeated, rather sharply.

Wanda saw very well that he was offended; but she relied on her power over him, a power she had often tested during the last few weeks.

"Yes, I will!" she declared, as decidedly as before.

The frown deepened on the young man's face. It was one of those moments when he rose up in rebellion against the charm which held him captive; but suddenly he met the dark eyes, and their look seemed to change the order into an entreaty. It was all over now with his anger and resistance. His brow cleared. He smiled.

"Well, then, I will give it you in my short, prosaic way," said he, with an emphasis on the last words. "Vineta^[1] was, so the story goes, an old fortified place by the sea, and the capital of an ancient nation. Her dominion extended over all the neighbouring coasts and over the waves, where she ruled supreme. Unparalleled in splendour and greatness, countless treasures flowed in to her from other lands; but pride, presumption, and the sins of her inhabitants brought down the chastisement of Heaven upon her, and she sank, swallowed up by the waves. Our sailors still affirm and vow that yonder, where the coast shelves back so far, the fortress of Vineta lies uninjured at the bottom of the sea. They say that, deep down below in the water, they catch a glimpse at times of towers and cupolas, hear the bells ring, and occasionally, at enchanted hours, the whole fairy city rises out of the depths, and shows itself to some specially favoured beholders. There are plenty of strange mirage effects at sea, and here in the north we have a sort of 'Fata Morgana,' though it comes but seldom ..."

"Oh, spare me all these tame explanations!" interrupted Wanda, impatiently. "Who cares for them, when the legend is pretty--and wonderfully pretty this one is, don't you think so?"

"I don't know," replied Waldemar, a little embarrassed. "I never thought about it."

"Have you no feeling for poetry whatever?" cried the young Countess, in despair. "Why, it is perfectly dreadful!"

He looked at her in surprise and some confusion.

"Do you think it so dreadful?"

"Of course I do!"

"No one has ever taught me to understand poetry," said the young man, almost in a tone of apology. "In my uncle's house nobody knows anything about it, and my tutors have never done more than give me dry, formal lessons. I am only just beginning to see that there is such a thing in the world."

The last words were spoken with a certain dreaminess of expression very new to Waldemar. He tossed back the hair which, as usual, had fallen low over his forehead, and leaned his head against the trunk of a beech. Wanda suddenly discovered that the brow so constantly hidden beneath those unkempt light locks was high and remarkably well-shaped. Now that it was free and exposed to view, it seemed really to lend nobility to the plain, irregular face. On the left temple a peculiarly distinct blue vein stood out, marked and salient even in a moment of repose. The young Countess had never noticed it before, hidden, as it generally was, beneath the enormous lion's mane which was always an object of derision to her.

"Do you know, I have just found out something, Waldemar," said she, mischievously.

"Well?" he asked, without changing his position.

"That strange blue vein on your forehead. My aunt has one, too, on the temple, just in the same place and exactly similar, only less strongly marked."

"Really? Well, it is the only thing I have of my mother about me."

"Yes, it is true; you are not in the least like her," said Wanda, candidly, "and Leo is her very image!"

"Leo!" repeated Waldemar, with a singular intonation. "Leo, indeed! That is a very different matter."

Wanda laughed. "Why? Has the younger brother any advantage over the elder in this respect?"

"Why not? He has the advantage of his mother's love. I should think that was enough."

"Waldemar, how can you say so!" put in the young Countess.

"Is the idea new to you?" he said, looking up with a frown. "I should have thought any third person must see how I stand with my mother. She forces herself to be friendly to me--oh yes!--and it must cost her trouble enough at times; but she can't overcome her secret dislike any more than I can mine--so we have nothing to reproach one another with."

Wanda was silent, embarrassed, and greatly surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. Waldemar did not appear to notice this; he went on in a hard voice--

"The Princess Baratowska is, and always will be, a stranger to me. I do not belong to her or to her son. I feel that every time we meet. You have no idea, Wanda, what it costs me to cross that threshold continually, to be constantly with them. It is a positive torture I impose on myself, and I should never have thought I could bear it so patiently."

"But what do you do it for?" asked Wanda, imprudently. "Nobody forces you to come."

He looked at her, and the answer lay in his eyes--shone in them so distinctly that the young girl blushed to her very forehead. That ardent, reproachful gaze spoke all too plainly.

"You do my aunt injustice," she said, speaking quickly, as if to hide her embarrassment. "She must, and does, love her own son."

"Oh, no doubt!" Waldemar's bitterness had now grown quite beyond his control. "I am persuaded that she loves Leo very much, though she is so severe with him; but why should she love me, or I her? I was hardly a year old when I lost father and mother at one stroke. I was torn from my home to be brought up among strangers. When, later on, I came to reflect, to ask questions, I learned that my parents' marriage had been an unhappy one--a misfortune for both of them--and that they had separated in bitter hatred; and I learned, too, how this hatred had survived the grave, and how it exerted an influence on my own life. They told me that my mother had been to blame for all; and yet I heard many an allusion to my father, many an expression used with regard to him, which disturbed my judgment of him also. Where other children are taught to love and respect, suspicion and distrust were instilled into me--and now I cannot get free from them. My uncle has been good to me; he is fond of me in his way, but he could not offer me anything beyond the life he leads himself. You know pretty well what that is--I think every one in my mother's house is well posted up on that subject--and yet, Wanda, you expect me to have some feeling for the poetical!"

He spoke almost resentfully, and yet there was a sort of low, regretful sadness in his words. Wanda looked up at her companion with great astonished eyes. She could hardly recognise him to-day. It was the first time she had ever had any serious conversation with him, the first time he had departed from his shy monosyllabic reserve. The peculiarly cold relations between the mother and son had not escaped her; but she had not believed the latter to be in any way affected by the existing estrangement. He had never alluded to the situation by a word; and now, all at once, he showed himself to be most keenly alive to, and deeply wounded by it. Now, in this hour, there dawned on the girl's mind some dim notion of what Waldemar's youth had been--how empty, lonely, and desolate, and how friendless and neglected the young heir whose riches she had so often heard extolled.

"You wanted to see the sunset," said Waldemar, suddenly changing the subject and speaking in quite a different tone, as he rose and came to her side. "I think we are having a rare one to-day."

And truly the clouds which bordered the horizon were suffused with a crimson glow, and the sun, still radiantly clear, was sinking lower and lower towards the sea, which flashed into a sudden glory at its farewell greeting. A flood of light streamed over its surface, spreading ever wider and wider--only over the spot where Vineta lay deep down at the bottom of the sea, the waves kept their sombre purple, while in their furrows gleamed bright streaks as of liquid gold, and above them thousands of glittering sparks danced and floated.

It must be owned that in the old legends there is a something which lifts them out of the domain of superstition, and even to a denizen of the modern world an hour may come when the old enchanting glamour makes itself felt, quickening the phantasies of the past into actual living realities. Truly, these legends sprang from the hearts of men; and their eternal problems, like their eternal truths, still preserve a strong hold on the human breast. Not to every one, indeed, does the fairy world open its gates, so closely guarded in these our days; but the two now seated on the Beech Holm must have belonged to the elect few, for they distinctly felt the charm which drew them gently but irresistibly within the magic circle, and neither of them had the courage, or the will, forcibly to break the spell.

Over their heads the wind rustled in the branches, louder still ran the murmur and plash of the sea at their feet. Wave upon wave came rolling up, rearing their white foam-crests aloft for an instant, then crashing over on to the shore. It was the old mighty ocean melody, the song of breeze and billow combined, which in its everlasting freshness enthrals every listener's heart. It sings now of dreamy, sunshiny calm, anon of raging storms with their terror and desolation, of restless, endless, surging life--each succeeding wave bringing a new tone of its own, each breath of wind echoing a responsive chord.

Waldemar and his young companion must have well understood this language, for they listened to it in breathless silence; and as they so sat and hearkened, another sound stole on their ears. Up from the very depths of the ocean came the faint chiming of bells, and about their hearts a feeling gathered as of pain and longing, mingled with a dim far-off perception of infinite bliss. From the purple waves yonder rose a shining vision. It floated on the waters, away into the golden glory, and there stood bright and definite, a world of countless, unknown treasures, a picture framed in a magic halo--the old fairy city of Vineta!

The burning edge of the great glowing disc now touched, as it were, the sea beneath it, and sinking ever deeper and deeper, disappeared at last below the horizon. One more flaming, fiery blaze--then the light went out, and the deep red hue still staining the water paled and gradually died away.

Wanda drew a long breath, and passed her hand across her brow.

"The sun is down," she said in a low voice; "we must be thinking of going back."

"Of going back?" repeated Waldemar, as in a dream. "Already?"

The girl rose quickly, as though to escape from some weight of uneasiness. "The daylight will soon be gone now, and we must get back to C---- before it grows dusk, or my aunt will never forgive me for coming without her leave."

"I will set that right with my mother," said Waldemar, and he too seemed to speak the indifferent words with an effort; "but if you wish to start ..."

"I do wish it, please."

The young man turned to go towards the boat, but all at once he stopped.

"You will be going away soon now, Wanda. In a few days, will you not?"

The question was put in a strangely agitated tone, and the young Countess's voice too had lost its natural ring, as she answered--

"I must go to my father now; he has done without me so long."

"My mother and Leo are going to Wilicza." Waldemar hesitated between the words, as though something caught his breath. "There is some talk of my joining them. May I?"

"Why do you ask me?" said Wanda, with an embarrassment very unusual to her. "It depends entirely upon yourself whether you visit your own property or not."

The young man did not heed the remark. He bent lower over her. His voice faltered, as it seemed, with deep passionate anxiety.

"But I do ask you, Wanda--you alone! May I come to Wilicza?"

"Yes," fell almost involuntarily from Wanda's lips; but in the same moment she started back, frightened at what she had done, for Waldemar seized her hand impetuously, and held it fast, as though it were his for ever and ever. The young Countess felt how he interpreted her 'yes,' and grew confused and troubled. A thrill of sudden alarm shot through her. Waldemar noticed that she drew back.

"Have I been too rough again?" he asked, in a low voice. "You must not be angry with me, Wanda--not to-day. It was only the idea of your going away that I could not bear. Now I know that I may see you again--now I will wait patiently till we are at Wilicza."

She made no reply, and they both went silently down to the boat. Waldemar put up the sail, and settled himself to the oars. With a few powerful strokes he sent the little craft far out to sea. A faint, rosy glimmer still lingered on the waves as the boat glided through them. Neither of the young people spoke during the journey. There was no sound, save the monotonous ripple of the water; the last transient glow died out of the sky, and the early shades of twilight fell over the Beech Holm, as it receded farther and farther into the distance. The sunset dream was over; but that old legend, which had woven its threads, tells us that he who has once looked on the lost Vineta, has once heard the sound of her bells, is pursued all his life by a longing which leaves him no rest until the enchanted city rises before him once more--or draws him down below into the depths.

CHAPTER VIII.

In Herr Witold's opinion, the diplomatic mission for which he had selected Dr. Fabian would be comparatively easy of performance; the chief difficulty lay in preparing the way for it. In order to gain accurate information as to 'what was really going on in C----,' the Doctor must, naturally, have access to the Princess Baratowska's house, and this could only be obtained through Waldemar. Witold racked his brains to think how he could put the matter before his adopted son, so as not to be met at the outset by a decided refusal. Chance unexpectedly befriended him. On Waldemar's last visit, the Princess had expressed a wish to make the acquaintance of her son's tutor. The young man spoke of it on his return, and the Squire caught eagerly at the welcome opportunity. For once in his life he was able to approve of a wish of the Princess Hedwiga's as rational. He held the Doctor inexorably to his word, and the latter, who had all along hoped that the scheme would fall through, frustrated by his pupil's obstinacy, was obliged, two days later, to set out for C---- in Waldemar's company, in order to undergo the desired presentation.

Waldemar was in the saddle as usual. He was passionately fond of riding, and detested a drive along the sandy or stony roads, over which he could gallop so swiftly. It did not occur to him to take a seat in the carriage to-day out of courtesy to his tutor. Dr. Fabian was accustomed to such marks of disrespect, and, shy and yielding by nature, he had not the courage to make a firm stand against his pupil's cavalier treatment of him, or, on its account, to resign his post. He was without pecuniary resources of his own; a situation meant for him the means of earning a livelihood. The life at Altenhof suited him but ill; still, on the whole, he contrived to take little part in it. He only appeared at table, and again for an hour in the evening, to keep the Squire company. His pupil made but small claim on his time. Waldemar was always glad when the hours for study were over, and his master was still more so. All the rest of the day was at the latter's own disposal, and he could pursue his hobby, his old Germanic researches, undisturbed. To these beloved studies Herr Witold owed it that the present preceptor of his adopted son did not follow the example of his six predecessors, and decamp from the place; for the Doctor said to himself with justice that, in another situation where the boys under his charge would require constant supervision, it would be all over with his archaeology. It needed, indeed, a patient character like Fabian's to hold out under such trying circumstances. To-day again he gave proof of his forbearance, bearing Waldemar's desertion in silence, when that young gentleman, giving spurs to his horse, actually rode on before, and only pulled rein to wait for him at the entrance to C----, which they reached about noon.

On their arrival they found only Countess Wanda in the drawing-room, and Dr. Fabian went through the first ordeal of introduction with much embarrassment, it is true, but still with a tolerable presence. Unfortunately, his visible and somewhat comic uneasiness at once incited the young Countess to bring her talent for mischief to bear on him.

"So, Doctor, you are my Cousin Waldemar's tutor?" she began. "I offer you my sincere condolences, and pity you with all my heart."

Fabian looked up startled, and then glanced with alarm at his pupil, who, however, seemed not to have heard the remark--his face did not betray a trace of anger or indignation.

"Why so, Countess?" stammered the Doctor.

"I mean, it must be a difficult office to educate Herr Waldemar Nordeck," continued Wanda, quite undisturbed, and with intense enjoyment of the confusion her words produced.

Again Dr. Fabian glanced across at Waldemar with an expression of real anguish. He knew how sensitive the young man was, how ill he could brook a jest. Often enough had a far more inoffensive observation from Herr Witold called forth a perfect storm; but, curiously enough, there was no sign of one to-day. Waldemar was leaning quietly on Countess Morynska's chair. A smile even hovered about his lips, as, bending down to her, he asked--

"Do you think me such a bad fellow, then?"

"Yes, I do. Had not I the pleasure of seeing you in a regular passion the day before yesterday, at the time of the quarrel about the rudder?"

"But I was not in a passion with you." said Waldemar, reproachfully.

The Doctor let fall the hat he had hitherto grasped with both hands. What mild, gentle tones were those he had heard from his rough pupil's mouth, and what meant the look which accompanied it? The conversation went on as it had begun, Wanda teasing the young man in her usual merry, high-handed way, and Waldemar lending himself to the sport with infinite patience. Nothing seemed to irritate or offend him here. He had a smile for her every joke, and was, indeed, completely metamorphosed since he had come into the young Countess's presence.

"Dr. Fabian is listening to us quite devoutly," she laughed. "It rejoices you to see us in such good spirits, Doctor?"

Poor Doctor! He was not thinking of rejoicing. Everything was going round him in a whirl. Slight as was his experience of love matters, the truth began gradually to dawn upon him. He could now form some idea of how 'the land lay.' This, then, was the reason Waldemar had so amiably consented to the reconciliation; this was why he so assiduously rode over to C---- in storm and sunshine; here was the explanation of the change in his whole behaviour. Herr Witold would certainly have a fit when he heard of it--Herr Witold, who had such a deeply rooted aversion to the entire 'Polish lot!' The diplomatic mission was indeed crowned with success in the very first half-hour; but its result filled the ambassador with such alarm that he entirely forgot the dissimulation which had been enjoined on him, and would probably have betrayed his trepidation, had not the Princess just then come in.

The lady had more than one reason for wishing to make the personal acquaintance of her son's tutor, who would accompany his pupil to the University. Now that the reconciliation had been achieved, that a lasting connection seemed likely to follow, Waldemar's nearest surroundings could not be a matter of indifference to her. She convinced herself, before ten minutes were over, that there was nothing to fear from the harmless Fabian; that, on the contrary, he might be made useful, possibly unknown to himself. Many things might be learned from the constant companion which could not be extracted from the taciturn Waldemar, and this was no unimportant consideration. The Princess did the Doctor the honour to look upon him as a fitting instrument for her use. She therefore treated him with much condescending kindness, and the humility with which he received such condescension met with her full approbation. She forgave him his shyness and awkwardness, or rather she looked on both as very natural in her presence, and deigned to engage him in conversation at some length.

On his mother's entrance, Waldemar had relapsed into his usual laconic mood. He took little part in the general talk, but after a time he said a few words to the Princess in a low voice. She rose at once, and went out with him on to the balcony.

"You wish to speak to me alone?" she asked.

"Only for a minute," replied Waldemar. "I only wanted to tell you that it will not be possible for me to accompany you and Leo to Wilicza, as we had agreed."

"Why? Are difficulties placed in your way?"

"Yes," said the young man, impatiently. "There are, it appears, certain formalities to be gone through, relating to my coming of age, at which I am bound to be present. My father's will gives most decided directions on the subject. Neither my uncle Witold nor I ever thought about it; and now, just when I want to go, the notice has come. I shall have to stay here for the present."

"Well, in that case, we will put off our journey also," said the Princess, "and I must send Wanda to Rakowicz alone."

"On no account," returned Waldemar, with much decision. "I have already written to Wilicza to say that you will arrive in the course of a few days, and that the necessary preparations are to be made at the castle."

"And you?"

"I shall come as soon as I am at liberty. Anyway, I shall spend a few weeks with you before I go to the University."

"One more question, Waldemar," said the Princess, gravely. "Does your ex-guardian know of these arrangements?"

"No, I have only spoken of my visit to Wilicza, so far."

"Then you will have to tell him of our intended sojourn there."

"I mean to," replied Waldemar, shortly. "I have written to my agent that he is to place himself at your service until I arrive. You have only to give your orders. I have provided for their being obeyed."

The Princess would have expressed her thanks, but she could not bring herself to articulate them. She knew so well that this generous consideration was not shown her for her own sake, and the particularly cold manner in which the obligation was conferred made it incumbent on her to accept it with equal reserve, if she would not incur a humiliation.

"So we may certainly expect you," she said. "As for Leo ..."

"Leo is sulky still, because of our quarrel the day before yesterday," interrupted Waldemar. "When I arrived just now, he turned off very demonstratively towards the shore, pretending not to see me."

The Princess knitted her brows. Leo had received strict orders to meet his brother in a friendly manner, and now he was showing this rebellious spirit at a most inopportune moment.

"Leo is often hasty and thoughtless. I will see that he makes the first advances towards a reconciliation."

Waldemar declined coolly. "No, no, we shall settle it better between ourselves. You need not be uneasy."

They went back into the drawing-room, where Wanda meanwhile had been amusing herself by sending Dr. Fabian from one stage of embarrassment to another. The Princess now released him. She wished thoroughly to discuss the plan of her son's studies, and he was obliged to follow her into her private room.

"Poor Doctor!" said Wanda, looking after him. "It seems to me you have quite reversed your rôles. You have not a particle of respect for your teacher, but he stands in unbounded awe of you."

Waldemar did not contradict this assertion, which was but too just; he merely remarked--

"Does it appear to you that Dr. Fabian is a person to inspire respect?"

"Not exactly; but he seems very forbearing and good-natured."

The young man looked contemptuous.

"Perhaps so; but those are qualities I do not particularly value."

"One should tyrannise well over you if one wishes to inspire respect?" said Wanda, with an arch glance up at him.

Waldemar drew forward a chair, and sat down by her side. "It all depends upon who plays the tyrant. I would not advise any one at Altenhof to try it, not even Uncle Witold, and here I only stand it from one person."

"Who knows!" cried Wanda, lightly. "I should not care to make you angry in real earnest."

He made no reply. His thoughts had evidently wandered from the conversation, and were following another track.

"Did not you think it was very beautiful on the Beech Holm the day before yesterday?" he asked suddenly, with a brusque transition.

A slight blush rose to the young Countess's cheeks, but she answered in her former sprightly tone--

"I think there is something uncanny about the place in spite of its beauty; and, as to those sea legends of yours, I certainly shall not listen to them again at the sunset hour. One really comes to believe in the old fables."

"Yes, one comes to believe in them!" said Waldemar, in a low tone. "You reproached me with not entering into the poetry of the tradition. I have learned to understand it now in my turn."

Wanda was silent. She was struggling to keep down a certain embarrassment which had assailed her yesterday for the first time in her life. Before this, on young Nordeck's entrance, the feeling had taken possession of her. She had tried to laugh it off, to jest it away, and had succeeded in the presence of others; but directly the two were left alone together, it returned in full force. She could not get back the tranquil easy tone of former days. That strange evening on the Beech Holm! It had invested with a singular earnest a matter which was, and certainly was to remain, nothing but a joke.

Waldemar waited for an answer in vain. He seemed rather hurt that none came.

"I was telling my mother just now that I cannot go with you all to Wilicza," he began again. "I shall not be there for three or four weeks."

"Well, that is not long," said Wanda.

"Not long? Why, it is an eternity!" he cried, vehemently. "You can form no idea of what it costs me to stay behind, and let you set out alone."

"Waldemar, pray ..." Wanda interposed in visible distress. He did not heed her, but went on with the same vehemence.

"I promised to wait until we were at Wilicza, but at that time I hoped to travel with you. Now it may be a whole month before we see each other again, and I cannot be silent so long. I cannot know you constantly in Leo's company, unless I have the conviction that you belong to me, to me alone."

The avowal came so suddenly, with such a rush, that the young Countess had no time to ward it off; and, indeed, any attempt of hers to stay this burst of passion would have been in vain. He had seized her hand again, and held it fast, as he had held it that evening on the Beech Holm.

"Do not shrink from me so, Wanda! You must long have known what brings me to this place. I have never been able to hide it, and you have borne with me--you have never repulsed me. I must break silence at last. I know I am not as others are. I know there is little, perhaps nothing, in me to please you; but I can, and will, learn to be different. It is solely and entirely on your account that I have imposed on myself these years at the University. What do I care for study, or for the life out yonder? I care for them nothing at all; but I have seen that I often shock you, that you sometimes laugh at me--and ... and you shall not do it any more. Only give me the certainty that you are mine, that I shall not lose you. Wanda, I have been alone ever since I was a child--sadly alone, often. If I have seemed rough and wild to you--you know, dear, I have had no mother, no affection. I could not grow up to be like Leo, who has had both; but I can love, perhaps more ardently and better than he. You are the only creature I have ever loved, and one single word from you will make up to me for all the past. Say the word, Wanda--or give me, at least, hope that I may one day hear it from your lips; but, I entreat of you, do not say no, for I could not, could not bear it."

He was actually on his knees before her; but the young Countess had no thought now of enjoying the triumph she had once desired in her childish presumption and vanity. A dim suspicion had, now and again, crossed her mind that the play was growing more like earnest than she had intended, and that it would not be easy to end it by treating it as a mere joke; but, with the heedlessness of her sixteen years, she had put the thought from her. Now the crisis had come, and she must face it--must reply to this passionate wooer, who would be satisfied by nothing less than a 'yes' or a 'no.' Truly, the wooing was not an alluring one. There was none of that tender romantic halo about it which, to a young girl's imagination, appears all essential. Even through this avowal of his love there ran a touch of that sternness which was inseparable from Waldemar's character; but every word told of stormy, long pent-up emotion--spoke of passion's ardent glow. Now for the first time Wanda saw how earnest he was in this matter of his love; and, with a pang of burning self-reproach, the thought flashed through her mind--what had she done?

"Get up, Waldemar, pray--I entreat of you!" Her voice shook with repressed alarm and anxiety.

"When I hear you say yes, not before!"

"I cannot--not now--do get up!"

He did not obey her; he was still in the same supplicating attitude, when the door leading from the anteroom was unexpectedly opened, and Leo entered.

For one moment the new-comer stood rooted to the spot; then a cry of indignation escaped his lips. "So this is how it is!"

Waldemar had sprung to his feet. His eyes blazed with anger. "What do you want here?" he demanded of his brother, imperiously.

Leo had been pale from agitation, but the tone of this question sent the blood up to his face. With a few rapid strides he stood before Waldemar.

"You seem to think my presence here unnecessary," said he, with flashing eyes. "Yet I of all people can best unriddle to you the scene which has just taken place."

"Leo, do not speak!" cried Wanda, half entreating, half commanding; but, in his jealousy, the young Prince lost sight of every other consideration.

"I will speak," he returned, in his exasperation. "My word only bound me until the wager was won, and I have just seen with my own eyes in whose favour it is decided. How often I have begged of you to make an end of the sport. You knew it wounded me, that it drove me to desperation. You persisted in it, nevertheless. Am I to submit quietly while Waldemar, in his fancied triumph, shows me the door--I, who am witness of how you undertook to bring Waldemar to his knees, come what might? Well, you have succeeded; but at least he shall know the truth!"

At the first word 'wager,' a great shock had passed through Waldemar's frame; now he stood motionless, grasping the back of the chair convulsively, whilst his eyes were turned on the young Countess with a strange expression.

"What--what does this mean?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

Wanda drooped her head consciously. There was a struggle in her mind between anger against Leo and shame at her own conduct; while, sharper than either, prevailed a feeling of keen, intense anxiety. She knew now how cruelly the blow would tell! Leo, too, was silent--struck by the sudden change in his brother's countenance; he began also to feel how unjustifiably he had acted in exposing Wanda, and how needful it was for him to stop.

"What does this mean?" repeated Waldemar, suddenly rousing himself from his torpor, and going straight up to the young girl. "Leo speaks of some wager, of some sport of which I have been the object. Answer me, Wanda. I will believe you, and you only. Tell me that it is a lie!"

"So I am a liar in your eyes," broke out Leo; but his brother did not heed him. The young Countess's silence told him enough--he needed no further confirmation; but, with the discovery of the truth, all the savage fierceness of his nature rose up within him, and now that the charm to which he had so long yielded was broken, that fierceness carried him beyond all bounds.

"I will have an answer!" he broke out in a fury. "Have I really only been a plaything for you, an amusement for your caprices? Have you been laughing at me, making a mock of me, while I ... You will give me an answer, Wanda--an answer on the spot, or I ..."

He did not finish the sentence; but his look and tone were so menacing that Leo stepped before Wanda to protect her. She, too, now drew herself erect, however. The sight of the young man's ungovernable rage had given her back her self-possession.

"I will not allow myself to be questioned in this manner!" she began, and would have added words of proud defiance, when suddenly her eye met Waldemar's, and she stopped. Though his features still worked with passion, there was something in his look which told of the man's unspeakable mental torture at seeing his love scorned and betrayed, the ideal he had worshipped hopelessly and utterly destroyed. But her voice seemed to recall him to his senses. His clenched fists relaxed, and he pressed his lips tightly together, as though resolved that no further word should pass them. His breast heaved convulsively in the mighty effort he was making to restrain his rage. He staggered, and leaned against the chair for support.

"What ails you, Waldemar?" asked Leo in alarm, as, remorse springing up within him, he advanced towards his brother.

Waldemar raised himself, and, waving off Leo, turned to go without uttering a word, but with a face from which every drop of blood had receded.

At this moment the Princess made her appearance, accompanied by Dr. Fabian. The sound of their voices, growing louder and louder, had reached her in her room, and made it clear to her that something unusual was going on in the drawing-room. She came in quickly, and for an instant her entrance was unnoticed. Wanda stood vacillating between defiance and distress; but at this crisis the latter gained the upper hand, and, with the cry of a child confessing a fault and praying to be forgiven, she called to the young man to come back.

"Waldemar!"

He stopped. "Have you anything else to say to me, Countess Morynska?"

The young Countess started. Never before had that tone of frigid, cutting contempt met her ear, and the burning blush which mantled to her face showed how keenly she felt it. But now the Princess barred her son's passage.

"What has happened? Where are you going, Waldemar?"

"Away from here," he answered in a dull low tone, without looking up.

"But explain to me what ..."

"I cannot; let me go. I cannot stay!" and, thrusting his mother aside, he rushed out.

"Well, then, I must request of you an explanation of this strange scene," said the Princess, turning to the others. "Stay, Doctor!" she continued, as Dr. Fabian, who up to this time had remained at the door, an anxious spectator, now made as though he would follow his pupil. "There is evidently some misunderstanding here, and I must beg of you to undertake the task of clearing up any mistake existing in my son's mind. By rushing away in that violent manner, he has made it impossible for me to explain matters myself. What has happened? I insist on being told."

Wanda did not respond to this authoritative demand; she threw herself on the sofa, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. Leo, on a sign from his mother, went up to her at the window, and related what had passed. The Princess's mien grew more and more ominously dark at every word he said, and it evidently cost her an effort to preserve her calm demeanour, as she turned to the Doctor at length and said, with much apparent composure--

"It is as I thought--a misunderstanding, nothing more! A foolish jest between my niece and my younger son has given Waldemar cause to feel offended. I beg of you to tell him that I regret it sincerely, but that I expect of him that he will not attach undue importance to the folly of two children." She laid a stress on the last word.

"It would be best for me to go now and look after my pupil," Fabian ventured to remark.

"By all means, do so," assented the lady, desirous now of ridding herself of this innocent but most unwelcome witness of the family quarrel. "Good-bye for the present, Doctor. I shall quite hope to see you back soon in Waldemar's company."

She spoke these last words very graciously, and received the tutor's parting obeisance with a smiling face; but when the door had closed behind him, the Princess stepped in sharply between Wanda and Leo, and on her countenance were written signs of an approaching storm, such as but rarely disturbed the even rule of this severe mother and aunt.

Meanwhile Dr. Fabian had learned from Pawlick that young Herr Nordeck had thrown himself on to his horse and ridden away. There was nothing for it now but to drive off to Altenhof after him, which the Doctor did as speedily as possible. On arriving there, however, he heard that Waldemar had not yet returned. The tutor could not help feeling uneasy at this prolonged absence, which, under ordinary circumstances, he would hardly have remarked. The conclusion of the agitated scene he had witnessed directed his surmises pretty near the truth. The Princess, certainly, had spoken of a misunderstanding only, of a jest which her son had taken amiss; but Waldemar's violent exit, his cutting reply to the young Countess's cry of entreaty--above all, the expression of his face--showed that the matter in question was of a very different nature. Something serious must have occurred that Waldemar, who but a short time before had patiently, in contradiction to his whole character, submitted to Wanda's every whim, should now turn his back on her and hers, and leave his mother's house in a manner which seemed to preclude all idea of return.

The whole afternoon wore away, and still Waldemar did not appear. Dr. Fabian waited and hoped in vain. He was glad that Herr Witold had taken advantage of his two house-mates' absence to drive over to the neighbouring town, from whence he was not expected to return until evening; so that, for the present at least, there was an escape from his inevitable questions.

Hour after hour passed away. Evening came; but neither the inspector who had been over to the forester's house, nor the men coming home from the fields, had seen anything of the young master. The Doctor's anxiety now drove him out of doors. He walked some distance up the road which led to the park, and along which every new-comer must pass. At some distance from this road ran a very broad, deep ditch, which was generally full of water, but was now dried up by the heat of the summer, the great unhewn stones with which the bottom was paved lying exposed to view. From the bridge which spanned it an extensive view could be had of the fields around. It was still quite light out here in the open air--only the woods began to wrap themselves in shade. Dr. Fabian stood on the bridge, not knowing what to do next, and considering whether he should go on farther, or turn back, when at last the figure of a horseman appeared in the distance, coming towards him at a gallop. The Doctor drew a deep breath of relief. He himself did not exactly know what he had feared; but, anyway, his fears had been groundless, and, full of rejoicing at the fact, he hurried along the side of the ditch towards the approaching figure on horseback.

"Thank God you are there, Waldemar!" cried he. "I have been so uneasy about you."

"Why?" he asked, coldly. "Am I a child that I may not be let out of sight?"

In spite of his enforced calm, there was a strange sound in his voice which at once called up afresh the Doctor's hardly appeased anxiety. He now noticed that the horse was completely exhausted. It was covered with foam from head to foot, the white flakes fell from its nostrils, and its chest heaved and panted. The animal had evidently been spurred on and on without rest or respite; but the rider showed no signs of fatigue. He sat firm in the saddle, grasped the reins with an iron grasp, and, instead of turning off aside in the direction of the bridge, made as though he would leap the ditch.

"For God's sake, do not attempt such a mad, rash act!" remonstrated Fabian. "You know Norman never will take the ditch."

"He will take it to-day," declared Waldemar, driving his spurs into the horse's flanks. It reared high in the air, but shied back from the obstacle, feeling, perhaps, that its exhausted strength would fail it at the critical moment.

"But listen, do listen!" entreated the Doctor, in spite of his timidity coming close up to the rearing, plunging animal. "You are requiring what is impossible. The leap will miscarry; and, in your fall, your head will be dashed to pieces on the stones below."

For all reply, Waldemar drove his Norman on anew. "Get out of my way!" he gasped. "I will go over. Out of the way, I say!"

That wild tone of torture and desperation revealed to the Doctor how matters stood with his pupil at this moment, and how little he cared whether he were really dashed to pieces on the stones below, or not. In his mortal dread of the accident he saw inevitably approaching, this man, usually so timorous, ventured to seize the reins, meaning to continue his remonstrances. Just then, however, a fearful blow of the whip crashed down on the rebellious animal. It reared again, and beat the air with its forefeet, but still refused the leap. At the same instant, a faint cry reached the rider's ears. He started, stopped, and then, with a movement swift as lightning, reined his horse back. It was too late. Dr. Fabian had been thrown to the ground, and Waldemar, leaping from his saddle, saw his tutor stretched, bleeding and unconscious, at his feet.

CHAPTER IX.

The dwellers at Altenhof had passed a week of great suspense and anxiety. When Herr Witold returned home on the evening of the accident, he found the whole house in commotion. Dr. Fabian lay bleeding and still unconscious in his room; and Waldemar, with a face which terrified his guardian even more than the sight of the sufferer, was endeavouring to stanch the wound. Nothing could be extracted from him, save that he had been the cause of the misfortune which had occurred; so the Squire was obliged, in a great measure, to rely on the reports of the servants. From them he learned that the young master had returned at dusk, bearing in his arms the injured man, whom he must have carried from a distance, and that he had immediately sent off messengers to the nearest doctors. A quarter of an hour later, the horse had come in in his turn, exhausted, and bearing all the traces of fast and furious riding. The animal, on being abandoned by its master, had taken the familiar road home--that was all the servants knew. The wound on the Doctor's head, evidently caused by a blow from the hoof, seemed of a serious nature; and the great loss of blood and weakly constitution of the patient aroused for some time fears of the worst. Herr Witold, thoroughly sound and healthy himself, and accustomed to a like vigour in Waldemar, had no experience of sickness or suspense, and swore often enough that for all the gold in the world he would not live through that week again. To-day, for the first time, the Squire's face wore its accustomed cheery look, as he sat by the bed in the patient's room.

"So we have tided over the worst," said he. "And now, Doctor, you will do me the favour to have a little rational talk with Waldemar." He pointed to his adopted son, who stood by the window, leaning his head against the panes, and looking out absently into the court. "I can do nothing with him, but you can obtain what you like from him now; so try and bring him to reason, or I shall have the boy ruined for life through this unhappy business."

Doctor Fabian, who wore a broad white bandage across his brow, still looked very weak and wasted; but he was sitting up, supported by pillows, and his voice, though faint, was quite clear as he asked--

"What do you wish Waldemar to do?"

"I wish him to be reasonable," returned Witold, emphatically; "to be reasonable, and to thank God that things have gone so well with us; instead of which he goes about tormenting himself, as if he really had a murder on his conscience. I was anxious enough myself for the first two or three days, when your life hung on a thread; but now that the doctor has declared you to be out of danger, one may breathe freely again. There is no good in overdoing a thing, and I can't bear any longer to see the boy wandering about with such a face, and hardly saying a word for hours together."

"But I have told Waldemar over and over again that I alone am to blame for the accident," said the Doctor. "His attention was quite taken up with his horse; he could not see I was standing so near. I was imprudent enough to seize the animal's veins, and it pulled me to the ground."

"You caught hold of Norman's reins?" asked the Squire, petrified with amazement. "You, who will go ten paces out of any horse's way, and have never ventured to approach the wild beast? How did you come to do that?"

Fabian glanced across at his pupil. "I was afraid of an accident," he answered, gently.

"Which would unquestionably have happened," went on Witold. "Waldemar could not have all his five senses about him that evening, to want to leap the ditch just at that spot, at dusk too, and with a horse dead beat! I have always told him that temper of his would get him into trouble some day. Now he has had a lesson--but he takes it rather too much to heart. So, Doctor, you just read him a sermon--you are allowed to talk now, you know--and persuade him to be reasonable. He will do what you tell him now, I am certain."

Saying which, the Squire rose and left the room.

The two who remained behind were silent awhile. At last the Doctor began--

"Did you hear what I have been charged with, Waldemar?"

The young man, who up to this time had stood by the window, silent and abstracted, as though the conversation in no way concerned him, turned round at once, and went up to the bed. At first sight, Witold's anxiety might have appeared exaggerated. Such a nature as Waldemar's does not succumb so easily to moral influences. He only looked somewhat paler than of yore; but any one who observed him closely would have discerned the change.

There was a strange, new expression in his face, well calculated to excite uneasiness--a peculiar rigidity of feature, as though all emotion had died out within him. This, however, might only be the vizier behind which some deeply wounded feeling hid itself from the outer world. His voice, too, had lost its full strong ring; it sounded weary and spiritless as he replied--

"Don't listen to my uncle. There is nothing the matter with me."

Dr. Fabian took his pupil's hand between his own, the young man submitting unresistingly.

"I have not ventured to touch on the subject yet," went on the Doctor, timidly. "I see it still gives you pain. Shall I be silent?"

Waldemar drew a deep, long breath.

"No," said he, after a minute. "I ought to thank you for withholding the truth from my uncle. He would have tortured me with questions which I should not have answered; but my madness on that evening nearly cost you your life. I cannot--I do not wish to deny to you what you, indeed, must know already."

"I know nothing," replied the Doctor, with a troubled look. "I can only form a guess from the scene I witnessed. Waldemar, tell me, for Heaven's sake, what had taken place?"

"Oh, it was nothing--a mere childish joke," said Waldemar, bitterly. "A piece of folly, which was not worthy to be taken seriously--so my mother wrote the day before yesterday. Unfortunately, I have taken it seriously--so seriously that it has wrecked part of my life for me, perhaps the best part."

"You love Countess Morynska?" asked the Doctor, in a low tone.

"I did love her; it is over. I know now that she was miserably trifling with me. I have done with her and her love."

Dr. Fabian shook his head, as he scanned the young man's face with deep anxiety. "Done with her? no, not for some time to come! I can see but too plainly what you are suffering at this moment."

Waldemar passed his hand across his brow. "That will pass. I have borne it, and I shall conquer it; for conquer it I will, at any cost. Only one thing I beg of you. Say no word of it to my uncle, nor--nor to me. I shall battle down the weakness, I know; but I cannot speak of it, not even to you. Let me settle the matter by myself--it will be all the sooner buried."

His trembling lips betrayed how sensitive was the wound to the slightest touch. The Doctor saw he must desist.

"I will be silent, since you wish it. You shall in future hear no word of it from me."

"In future!" repeated Waldemar. "Why, are you thinking of staying on with me? I took it for granted that you would leave us when you got well. I can hardly expect you to put up with a pupil who rides you down in return for all your care and trouble."

The Doctor took the young man's hands again soothingly between his own.

"As though I did not know that you have suffered far more than I! One good result my illness has had. It has convinced me on a point--forgive me--on which I was not fully convinced before. I know now that you have a heart to feel for others."

Waldemar seemed hardly to hear the last words. His eyes had a gloomy, absent look; but suddenly he roused himself, and said, "My uncle is right in one thing. How did you come to take hold of Norman's reins, you of all people?"

Fabian smiled. "You mean because my cowardice is notorious? It was anxiety on your account which made me courageous for once. I had, it is true, often seen you commit similar mad acts of rashness, and never ventured to interfere; but then I always knew that you were a match for the danger which you set yourself to overcome. On that evening you were not bent on overcoming a danger; you were bent on bringing about that fall, Waldemar. I saw you wished for it, saw it would be death to you, if I did not hold you back by force, and I forgot even my fear, and seized the bridle."

Waldemar looked at the speaker with wide, astonished eyes. "So it was not mere imprudence, not by any unlucky accident that you were thrown to the ground. You knew to what you were exposing yourself. Do you care at all about my life, then? I thought nobody cared for it."

"Nobody? and your guardian?"

"Uncle Witold? Yes, he perhaps; but no one else."

"I think I have shown you that somebody else cares," said the Doctor, with gentle reproach.

The young man bent over him.

"I know that I have deserved it least of all from you; but, believe me, Doctor, I have had a hard lesson, so hard a one that I shall never forget it as long as I live. From the hour I carried you home bleeding, from the two first days when the surgeon gave you up for lost, I have been learning what a murderer must feel. If you really are willing to stay on with me, you may risk it now. Here, by your bed of pain, I have for ever forsworn those violent fits of passion which blind me to everything that comes in my way. You shall not have to complain of me any more."

The words were spoken with a touch of the old energy; but Dr. Fabian still gazed anxiously into his pupil's countenance, as the latter bent over him. "I wish you could tell me that with a different face," he replied. "Of course I shall stay with you; but I would rather have your old impetuosity than this dull unnatural calm. There is a look in your eye which does not please me."

Waldemar raised himself quickly, withdrawing from the too keen observation. "Don't let us be for ever talking of me," he said. "The doctor says you may have some fresh air now. Shall I open the window?"

The sick man sighed. He saw there was nothing to be done here; moreover, the conversation was now interrupted by the entrance of Herr Witold.

"Here I am again," said he, coming in. "Waldemar, you will have to go down. Young Prince Baratowski is there."

"Leo?" asked Waldemar, in evident astonishment.

"Yes, he wants to speak to you. My presence will be superfluous, I am very sure, so I'll stay and keep the Doctor company."

The young man left the room, and Witold sat down in his former place by the bedside.

"The Baratowskis are exceedingly anxious to get hold of him again," said he, alluding to his adopted son. "Three days ago a letter came from her Highness, our lady mamma. Waldemar has not answered it, to my knowledge; in fact, nothing would induce him to leave you, so now the brother is sent over in person. And I must say this, the young Polish shoot is of a very trim growth--a perfect picture of a boy! only, unfortunately, as like his mother as two peas, which goes strongly against him in my eyes. And now it just occurs to me, I have never asked you what discoveries you made at C----. In my worry about you, I had quite forgotten the whole affair."

Dr. Fabian cast down his eyes, and plucked nervously at the counterpane. "I am sorry I cannot give you any information, Herr Witold," he replied. "My visit to C---- was too short, too hurried, and I told you before that I had neither skill nor luck for a diplomatist."

"Ah, you are thinking of the crack in your skull," said the Squire; "but that had nothing to do with the business. However, I won't bother you with such commissions in future. So you could not find out anything? More's the pity! And how goes it with Waldemar? Did you read him a good lecture?"

"He has promised that he will endeavour to put all that has passed away from his mind."

"Thank God! I tell you, you can do anything with him now; and what is more, Doctor, we have both of us been unjust to the boy in thinking he had no feeling. I never should have imagined he would take the thing so much to heart."

On entering the study or 'den' before described, Waldemar found his brother waiting for him. The young Prince, on arriving, had been struck by the appearance of the old-fashioned, somewhat low-roofed dwelling-house, and was now examining with wondering eyes the modest arrangements of the room into which he had been shown. Accustomed from his earliest childhood to a well-appointed, elegant house, he could not understand how his brother, wealthy as he knew him to be, could possibly endure to live on here. The salon of the hired house at C----, which to him and to the Princess appeared miserably shabby, was splendid in comparison to this reception-room at Altenhof.

All these reflections vanished, however, on Waldemar's entrance. Leo went up to him, and said hastily, as though to get over a disagreeable but unavoidable task as speedily as possible, "You are surprised to see me here; but you have not been near us for a whole week, and you have not answered mamma's letter, so there was nothing left us but to come and look after you."

It was easy to see that, in paying this visit, the young man was not acting spontaneously. His speech and manner were decidedly constrained. He seemed on the point of holding out his hand to his brother, but evidently could not quite prevail on himself to offer such a mark of amity. The little movement was not followed up.

Waldemar either did not, or would not, notice it. "You come by your mother's, desire?" he asked.

Leo reddened. He best knew what a struggle it had cost the Princess to extort compliance; how she had needed to employ the whole weight of her authority before he would consent to take this journey to Altenhof.

"Yes," he replied, somewhat tardily.

"I am sorry you should have had to take a step which must appear a humiliating one to you, Leo. I should certainly have spared it you, if I had known anything of the matter."

Leo looked up in surprise. The tone was as new to him as the consideration for his feelings, coming from this quarter.

"Mamma declared you had been insulted in our house," he began again--"insulted by me, and that, therefore, I must make the first advances towards a reconciliation. I feel myself now that she is right. You will believe me, Waldemar"--here his voice grew agitated--"you will believe me, that without such a feeling on my part I never should have come, never!"

"I believe you," was the short, but decided answer.

"Well, then, don't make it so hard for me to beg your pardon!" cried Leo, really stretching out his hand now. His brother declined it.

"I cannot accept your excuses. Neither you nor my mother are to blame for the insult I received in your house; moreover, it is already past and forgotten. Let us say no more about it."

Leo's astonishment grew with every minute. He could make nothing of this quiet coolness which he had been so far from expecting. Had he not himself witnessed Waldemar's terrible agitation, and that scarcely a week ago?

"I did not think you could forget so quickly!" he replied, with unfeigned wonder.

"When my contempt is aroused, certainly!"

"Waldemar, that is too severe," Leo broke out. "You do Wanda a wrong. She herself charged me to say to you ..."

"Had you not better spare me Countess Morynska's message?" said his brother, interrupting him. "My view of the case is, I should imagine, the one in question now, and it differs altogether from yours--but let us drop the subject. My mother will not, of course, expect me to bid her good-bye in person. She will understand that, for the present, I shall avoid her house, and that I shall not come to Wilicza this autumn, as we had agreed. Perhaps I may see you there next year."

The young Prince drew back with a dark frown on his brow. "You do not suppose that, after this quarrel, after the cold repulse I have met with here, we can still be your guests?" he asked, angrily.

Waldemar crossed his arms, and leaned on the bureau. "You mistake. There has been no quarrel between us. My mother, in her letter to me, condemned the late incident in very decided terms. You showed a disapproval even more marked by interfering the other day; and if I desired any formal satisfaction, you offer it me now by coming here. What has the whole business to do with your staying at my place? But you always opposed the plan, I know. For what reason?"

"Because it is humiliating to me--and what was painful to me before, has now become impossible. Mamma may determine on what she likes, but I will not set my foot ..."

Waldemar laid his hand kindly on the boy's arm. "Do not say it out, Leo. Later on you may feel yourself bound by a word spoken in haste. You are in no way concerned in the matter. I offered my mother a home at Wilicza, and she accepted it. Under existing circumstances, it was no more than my duty. I could not consent to her staying with strangers for any length of time--so the plan still holds good. Besides, you will be going to the University, and at most will only run over to Wilicza in the holidays to see my mother. If she thinks the arrangement compatible with her pride, you may very well put up with it."

"But I know that our whole living depends on it!" cried Leo, impulsively. "I have insulted you--I feel it now--and you cannot require me to accept anything at your hands!"

"You have offered me no offence," said Waldemar, gravely. "On the contrary, you are the only one who has been true to me; and if your words stung me at first, I thank you for them now. You should only have spoken sooner; but I could hardly expect you to play the part of informer. I understand that nothing but the passion of the moment would have forced the disclosure from you. Your intervention rent away a net in which I lay captive, and you do not suppose I am so weak a creature as to complain of that. Between us two all enmity is at an end."

Resentment and a feeling of shame were struggling together in Leo's mind. He knew right well that he had been prompted by jealousy alone, and felt his share in the fault the more keenly, the more he was absolved from blame. He had counted on a violent scene with his brother, of whose passionate temper he had had sufficient proofs; but now he stood before him utterly disconcerted. The young Prince was not yet experienced enough in the reading of men's hearts to see, or even to dream of, all that lay behind Waldemar's incomprehensible calm, or to guess by what an effort it was assumed. He accepted it as genuine. One thing he clearly felt, and that was his brother's evident desire that neither he nor the Princess should suffer by what had occurred--that it should still be possible for them to accept a home from him. Perhaps under similar circumstances Leo would not have been capable of a like generosity; but for this very reason he felt it to its fullest extent.

"Waldemar, I am sorry for what has happened," he said, frankly holding out his hand. There was nothing constrained about his manner this time--the impulse came straight from his heart--and this time his brother grasped the offered hand unhesitatingly.

"Promise me to go with our mother to Wilicza. I ask it of you," he went on, more gravely, as Leo was about to resist. "If you really think you have given me ground for offence, I ask this favour of you as the price of our reconciliation."

Leo drooped his head. He gave up all resistance now. "So you will not say good-bye to my mother yourself?" he asked, after a pause. "That will grieve her."

A very bitter smile played about Waldemar's lips as he replied, "She will be able to bear it. Good-bye, Leo. I am glad at least to have seen you again."

The young Prince looked for one instant into his brother's face, then, with a sudden rush of feeling, he threw his arms round his neck. Waldemar submitted to the embrace in silence; but he did not respond to it, though it was the first demonstration of the kind between the two.

"Good-bye," said Leo, somewhat chilled, and letting his arms fall to his sides again.

A few minutes later the carriage which had brought young Baratowski rolled out of the courtyard again, and Waldemar returned to the room they had just left. Any one seeing him now--seeing how his lips twitched convulsively, how his features were drawn in a tension of pain, how fixed and full of misery was his look--would have discerned the real state of the case, have understood why the cold, self-possessed tone he had maintained throughout the interview had been adopted. His pride, which had received so mortal a wound, had roused itself to action once more. Leo must not see that he was suffering, must on no account take back that report to C----. But now such self-control was no longer needed; now the wounds bled afresh. Strong and violent, as was his whole character, had been Waldemar's love, the first tender emotion that had sprung up in the heart of the desolate, uncultured youth. He had loved Wanda with all the glow of passion, but also with the reverent worship of a first pure affection; and if the discovery that he had been trifled with and scoffed at did not altogether ruin him, that hour in which his boyish ideal was shattered and destroyed took from him much that makes life desirable--took from him his youth and his trust in his fellow-men.

PART THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

Castle Wilicza, which gave its name to all the lands appertaining to it, formed, as has already been mentioned, the central point of a great agglomeration of estates situated near the frontier. Rarely indeed does so extensive a property come into the hands of one man; still more rarely does it happen that the owner shows so little interest in his possessions as was here the case. Judicious, systematic management had ever been wanting to the Wilicza domain. The late master, Nordeck, had been a speculator, and had acquired his fortune by a speculator's talents; he could play the part of a great landed proprietor neither as regards a practical nor a social point of view, and was not long in discovering that he was well-nigh at the mercy of his agents. He at once rid himself of all care for the separate outlying estates by letting them off, and they were still held by the various tenants who had leased them. Wilicza itself, his own residence, was excepted from the rule, and given over to the administration of a steward.

The chief wealth of the property consisted, however, in the extensive forests, which covered nearly two-thirds of the domain, and required for their inspection a perfect army of foresters and rangers. They formed a distinct branch of the administration, and were the principal source of those vast revenues which yearly flowed into the proprietor's coffers.

At Nordeck's death, the guardian of the infant heir, stepping into his friend's shoes, suffered all existing arrangements to remain undisturbed, partly out of a pious regard to the dead man's wishes, partly because such a course seemed to him advisable in the interest of the property. Herr Witold managed the Altenhof estate extremely well--it was on a scale small enough for him to take the entire direction of it into his own hands; but to the grander ratio of Wilicza affairs the Squire showed himself altogether unequal--he had neither measure nor grasp for them. He thought he had done his duty to the uttermost when he had gone as carefully as possible through the accounts and vouchers submitted to him, which he was necessarily obliged to take on trust--when he had conscientiously invested the incoming funds with a due regard to his ward's interests; and, for the rest, he relied on the agents, who were allowed to act in everything according to their own good will and pleasure. This sort of management would have ruined most landowners, but it could not make any very formidable breach in the Nordeck fortune; for, if hundreds were lost here and there, thousands and tens of thousands remained behind, and the enormous revenues of the domain, of which at present the young heir could only enjoy a very limited fraction, not only covered every chance deficit, but went continually to swell the capital. That the estates produced less than by skilful hands they might have been made to produce, was incontestable; but the guardian cared little for that, and young Nordeck even less.

The young man had gone to the University shortly after his coming of age, and from thence he had set out on his travels. For years he had not shown himself at Wilicza; he seemed to have no love for the place.

The Castle itself presented a striking contrast to most of the noblemen's seats around, which, with few exceptions, hardly deserved the name of castles, and whereof the decay and ruin were often not to be hidden by a certain outward splendour maintained by their owners at any cost. The exterior of Wilicza was such as became the old seigneurial residence of many a prince and count during two centuries. It dated from the country's brightest period, when the might of the nobility still went hand in hand with its wealth, when its chateaux were the scene of a luxury and magnificence hardly known in these our days. The castle could not exactly be described as beautiful, and would hardly have found grace in the eyes of an artist. The taste which gave it being was undeniably of a rude order; but it was imposing by its massive structure and by the grandeur of its design. In spite of all the changes it had undergone in the course of years, it still retained its old original character; and the great edifice, with its long rows of windows, its broad expanse of lawn, and vast, finely wooded park, stood out, somewhat sombre perhaps, but grand and majestic, from the circle of magnificent forests which surrounded it.

After the death of the late owner, the castle had stood for many years empty and deserted. At very rare intervals the young heir came in company of his guardian, but he never stayed more than a few weeks at a time. The desolate solitude of the place vanished, however, when its former mistress, the present widowed Princess Baratowska, returned to take up her abode at Wilicza. The apartments, which had been so long shut up, were thrown open once more, and the costly decorations and furniture with which Nordeck had fitted up the different suites of rooms on the occasion of his marriage, were renewed and restored to all their pristine splendour. The present proprietor had assigned to his mother's use the income arising from the Castle lands--a sum inconsiderable to him, yet sufficient to secure to the Princess and her younger son means 'suitable to their position,' however broad an interpretation she might choose to put on the words. She made full use of the funds at her disposal, and her surroundings and manner of life were ordered on the same scale as in past times, when the young Countess Morynska came to rule as mistress in Wilicza, and her husband still loved to parade his wealth before her and her relations.

It was the beginning of October. The autumnal wind was sharp already as it swept over the forests, where the foliage was gradually changing its tints, and the sun often fought its way with difficulty through the thick mists which enveloped the landscape. To-day again the veil had only lifted towards noon, but now the sun shone brightly into the salon which communicated with the Princess's study, and in which she usually sat. It was a large apartment, lofty and somewhat gloomy, like all the rooms in the Castle, with deep window-niches and a spacious chimney-place, where, as a protection against the chills of autumn, a fire was sparkling. The heavy dark-green curtains were thrown far back, and the full daylight streaming in displayed the solid handsome furniture, in all which the same dark-green hue predominated.

The only occupants of the room at the present moment were Count Morynski and the Princess. The Count often came over with his daughter from Rakowicz, and would spend days, even weeks, with his sister. On this occasion he had arrived on a long visit. The years which had passed over his head had left visible traces--his hair had grown greyer, and there were more lines imprinted on his forehead--but the expression of that grave, characteristic face remained unaltered. In the Princess, on the other hand, there was hardly any change. The features of this still beautiful woman were as cold and proud, her bearing as haughty, as in the old days. Although at the expiration of the year she had laid aside her deep widow's mourning, she yet constantly dressed in black; and her dark, though exceedingly rich, attire set off her tall figure to full advantage. She was now engaged in an animated conversation with her brother.

"I do not understand why the news should surprise you," said she. "We must both of us have been prepared for it for some time. To me, at least, it has always been a matter for wonder that Waldemar should remain so long and so persistently absent from his estates."

"That is just what causes my surprise," said the Count. "He has avoided Wilicza hitherto in the most evident manner. Why should he come now so suddenly, without any previous intimation of his plan? What can he want here?"

"What should he want but to hunt and shoot?" replied the Princess. "You know he has inherited from his father a passion for sport. I am convinced that he only chose the University of J---- because it lies in a well-wooded country; and that, instead of attending the lectures, he roamed about all day with his gun and bag. It will have been the same, no doubt, on his travels. It is certain that he thinks of, and cares for, nothing but sport."

"He could not come at a worse time," said Morynski. "Just now everything depends upon your remaining complete mistress here. Rakowicz lies too far from the frontier. We are watched on all sides, hemmed in by all manner of difficulties. It is absolutely necessary we should keep Wilicza in our hands."

"I know it," said the Princess, "and I will take care so to keep it. You are right, the visit comes at a most inopportune moment; but I cannot prevent my son from visiting his own estates when he thinks proper. We must be very prudent."

The Count waved his hand impatiently.

"Prudence alone will not suffice. We ought simply to give up the whole business while Waldemar stays at the Castle, and that is impossible."

"It is not necessary either, for he will be little enough at the Castle, or I am mistaken in the charm which our forests must exercise over such a son of Nimrod. With Nordeck this passion for sport became at last a perfect mania, and Waldemar is exactly like his father in this respect. We shall not see much of him; he will be out all day in the forests, and will, assuredly, pay no attention to what is going on at Wilicza. The only thing here which can have any interest for him is the great collection of guns in the armoury, and that we will willingly leave to him."

There was a sort of half-contemptuous raillery in her words; but the Count's voice was grave and a little doubtful as he answered--

"Four years have gone by since you saw Waldemar. You could do what you liked with him then, it is true, though at first I greatly doubted your power over him. It is to be hoped you will succeed as well now."

"I think it likely," returned the Princess, with calm assurance. "Besides, he is really not so difficult to manage as you imagine. His stubborn self-will furnishes the very best hold over him. You have only to give way to his rough violence in the first moment, and maintain him in the implicit belief that his will is to be respected, come what may, and you have him altogether in your hands. If we tell him every day that he is sole and unrestricted master of Wilicza, it will not occur to him to wish to be so in reality. I do not credit him with sufficient intelligence for any very deep interest in the state of affairs on his estates. We may make our minds easy."

"I must depend altogether on your judgment in the matter," said Morynski. "I myself have only seen him twice. When did you receive the letter?"

"This morning, about an hour before you arrived. According to it, we may expect Waldemar any day; he was already on his road hither. He writes in his usual laconic way, giving no details. You know that our correspondence has never been remarkable for prolixity. We have never communicated to each other more details than were necessary."

The Count looked down thoughtfully. "Does he come alone?"

"With his former tutor, who is his constant companion. I thought at first the man might prove useful, that we might gain from him some fuller accounts of Waldemar's doings and manner of life at the University, but I was mistaken. Of course, my son's studies served me as a pretext for seeking information from him, and I received in reply nothing but learned dissertations on the subject of those studies, not a word of what I wanted to know. My questions did not appear to be understood, so at last I broke off the fruitless correspondence--otherwise, this Dr. Fabian is one of the most harmless creatures in the world. We have nothing to apprehend from his presence, and certainly nothing from his influence, for he possesses none."

"It is Waldemar who principally concerns us," said the Count. "If you think there will be no inconvenient watchfulness in that quarter ..."

"At all events, there will be none keener than that which we have had to endure day by day for months together," interrupted his sister. "I should think the steward must have taught us caution by this time."

"Yes, that Frank and his household are acting as so many spies upon us," exclaimed Morynski, hotly. "I wonder, Hedwiga, you have never been able to rid us of that troublesome personage."

The Princess smiled in her superior wisdom.

"Compose yourself, Bronislaus. The steward will very shortly give in his resignation. I could not proceed against him earlier. He has been twenty years at his post, and has always acquitted himself of his duties in an irreproachable manner. I had no grounds for requiring his dismissal. I preferred to manage so that he should give notice himself, which he did yesterday--only by word of mouth, so far, and to me; but the formal announcement of it will follow ere long. I attach much importance to its coming from him, particularly now that a visit from Waldemar is impending."

The Count's features, which during the whole interview had evinced unmistakable anxiety, gradually relaxed into calm.

"It was high time," said he, with evident satisfaction; "that Frank was growing to be a real danger. Unfortunately, we must still put up with him for a time. His contract stipulates for a notice of several months."

"It does; but the clause will not be insisted on. The steward has long been independent of his situation; it is even said he means to buy a place of his own. Besides this, he is a man of high spirit; one scene that hurt his pride, and he would go at once. I give you my word for it! That will not be difficult to obtain, now that he has once decided upon going. What, Leo, back from your walk already?"

The last words were addressed to the young Prince, who at that moment entered the room and came up to them.

"Wanda would not stay in the park any longer," he answered. "I was coming ... But perhaps I am interrupting a consultation?"

Count Morynski rose. "We have finished. I have just heard of your brother's expected arrival, and we were discussing the consequences, one of which will be that our present visit must be shortened. We shall remain to-morrow for the fête, but return next day to Rakowicz before Waldemar makes his appearance. He ought not, on coming home, to find us here as guests of his house."

"Why not?" asked the Princess, coolly. "On account of that old childish folly, do you mean? Pooh! who gives it a thought now? Certainly not Wanda! And Waldemar--well, in four years he has had time to get over the imagined insult! That his heart was not deeply involved in the matter we know through Leo, to whom but a week afterwards he declared that he had forgotten the whole affair. Our sojourn at Wilicza, too, is proof enough that he no longer attaches any importance to it. I consider it will be most judicious and show the best tact for us to ignore the matter altogether. If Wanda meets him without any embarrassment, in a cousinly way, he will hardly remember that he once cherished a romantic feeling for her."

"Perhaps it would be wisest," said the Count, as he turned to go. "At all events, I will talk it over with Wanda."

Leo, contrary to his habit, had taken no part in the conversation; and now that his uncle had left the room, he sat down in his place without speaking. He had looked agitated on his entrance, and there were still signs in his face of a perturbation he strove in vain to hide. His mother, at least, had remarked it at once.

"Your intended walk was soon over," she said, nonchalantly. "Where is Wanda?"

"In her room--or so I suppose."

"You suppose only? There has been a quarrel between you again, I conclude. Do not attempt to deny it, Leo. Your face tells the tale plainly enough; and, moreover, I know you never leave Wanda's side unless she drives you away from her."

"Yes, she often seems to find a peculiar pleasure in driving me from her," said Leo, with unfeigned bitterness.

"And you often torment her by your unfounded jealousy of every one who approaches her. I am convinced that has been the cause of your disagreement today."

The young Prince was silent, thereby confirming his mother's supposition. She went on a little satirically, "It is the old story: a love uncrossed makes sorrows for itself. You have the rare good fortune to be able to follow the impulse of your hearts without impediment, with the full approval of your parents, and now you make your lives uncomfortable in this manner. I will not attempt to exonerate Wanda from her share of the blame. I am not blind to her advantages, which grow more and more striking now that she has laid aside her childish ways; but what I feared from the first day I gave her back to her father has unfortunately come to pass. With his unbounded tenderness, his adoration, he has prepared a hard task for you and me. Wanda knows no will but her own. She is accustomed to have her way in everything; and you, I regret to say, do not teach her that others can be firm as well as she."

"I assure you, mother, I was not very yielding to Wanda to-day," replied Leo, in a voice still vibrating with anger.

The Princess shrugged her shoulders. "Perhaps not to-day; but to-morrow you will be on your knees before her, begging her pardon. She has invariably brought you to it. How often must I explain to you that that is not the way to inspire a proud and wilful girl with the respect to which the future husband should lay claim!"

"But I am not capable of such cool calculation," cried Leo, passionately. "When I love, when I worship a woman with all my soul, I cannot for ever be thinking whether my conduct towards her is such as befits the future husband."

"Do not complain then if your passion is not returned in the measure you desire," said the Princess, coldly. "If I know anything of Wanda, she will never love the man who bows to her authority, but rather him who resists it. A nature such as hers should be forced into surrender, and that you have never understood."

He turned away, muttering in his ill humour--

"After all, I have no right to Wanda's love. I have never been permitted to make our engagement known. Our marriage is put off to some distant, indefinite time ..."

"Because it is not now the moment to be thinking of betrothals and weddings," interrupted his mother, with much decision and energy. "Because there are other and graver tasks before you than that of adoring a young wife who would banish everything else from your mind! 'Some distant, indefinite time!' when it is only a question of a year's delay! First win your bride; the opportunity will not long be wanting, and Wanda herself would never consent to marry you until you have earned her favour. But this brings us to another subject, which I am forced to touch upon. Leo, your uncle is not pleased with you."

"Has he been accusing me to you?" asked the young man, looking up with a frown.

"He has, unfortunately, been forced to speak to me. Must I remind you that to your superior in age, your relative and leader, you owe unreserved obedience? Instead of obeying, however, you place new and unnecessary difficulties in his path--put yourself at the head of a band of young men, your own contemporaries, and offer him open opposition. What does this mean?"

A look of stubborn defiance came into Leo's face, as he answered, "We are no children to be led without a will of our own. If we are younger, we have still a right to our opinion; and we are resolved not to bear this eternal hesitation, these doubts and fears which hold us back."

"Do you suppose that my brother will allow himself to be drawn by young Hotspurs such as you into a course he knows to be ruinous?" asked the Princess, sharply. "You are much mistaken. It was hard work for him before to keep all the clashing elements in check, and now he has the vexation of seeing his own nephew set the example of disobedience."

"I only contested his decision, nothing more," said the young Prince, defending himself. "I love and honour Morynski as your brother, still more as Wanda's father; but it wounds me that he will not admit my right to independence. You yourself repeat to me continually that my name and descent entitle me to the first place, and my uncle requires me to be satisfied with a subordinate one."

"Because he dares not confide the direction of all-important matters to a hot head of one and twenty. You misjudge your uncle altogether. He has been denied an heir, and, idolise Wanda as he may, those hopes which only a son can realise are concentrated on you--you who are so closely connected with him by ties of blood, and who will shortly be to him indeed a son. If, for the present, he thinks it necessary to restrain your ardour, for the future he counts upon your fresh young strength, when his own shall begin to fail. I have his word that, when the decisive moment arrives, Prince Leo Baratowski shall assume the position which is his due. We both hope you will show yourself worthy of it."

"Do you doubt it?" cried Leo, springing up with flashing eyes.

His mother laid her hand soothingly on his arm. "Most assuredly we do not doubt your courage. What you lack is reflection, and I fear you will never learn it, for you have your father's temperament. Baratowski would blaze out as you do, without considering obstacles, or staying to inquire whether things were possible, and often enough has his impetuosity brought trouble both on himself and me. But you are my son as well, Leo, and I fancy you must have inherited something from your mother also. I have answered for you to my brother. It will be for you to redeem my surety."

Earnest as were her words, they breathed of such fond, motherly pride that Leo threw his arms round her in a burst of loving emotion. The Princess smiled. She was but rarely accessible to soft touches of feeling; but at this moment all a mother's tenderness was in her look and in her tone, as, returning her son's embrace, she said, "What my hopes for your future are, my Leo, I need not now repeat to you; I have told you again and again. You have ever been to me my all, my only one."

"Your only one?" the young Prince reminded her a little reproachfully. "You forget my brother?"

"Waldemar?" The Princess drew herself up. At mention of this name all softness vanished from her features, all tenderness from her voice. Her countenance was grave and severe as before, and her tone icy cold as she went on, "Yes, truly, I had forgotten Waldemar. Fate has decreed that he should be master of Wilicza. We shall have to endure him."

CHAPTER II.

At no great distance from the Castle stood the dwelling of Herr Frank, the land-steward. The administration of the Wilicza estates had ever been carried on distinct from the Castle, which, whether it were inhabited or not, stood apart in stately seclusion, while the management of the property was left exclusively in the hands of the agent. The latter's handsome house, with its surrounding buildings and offices, almost all newly erected, excited much admiration; and the order reigning throughout the farm, so different from what was to be seen on the neighbouring estates, was marvelled at, though not imitated, by the whole country-side. The position of the Wilicza steward was, indeed, one which many a landed proprietor might have envied, both as regarded income and his manner of life.

It was growing dusk. Over at the Castle the long rows of windows on the first story were being gradually illuminated; there was a grand reception at the Princess's. In the agent's parlour no light had as yet been kindled, and the two gentlemen sitting there were so absorbed by their conversation that they did not appear to notice the ever-increasing darkness.

The elder of these was a fine man of noble presence, still in the prime of life, and with a frank and exceedingly sunburnt face. The younger, on the other hand, bore in his whole appearance evident marks of town breeding. In spite of his rather diminutive stature, he might be considered a good-looking man. His carefully curled hair, and the fashionable cut of his clothes, gave him somewhat of the air of a dandy; but there was no affectation of this in his manner. On the contrary, his speech and bearing were weighted with an excess of dignity and importance which occasionally came into rather comic contrast with his small person. "The thing is settled, I shall go!" the elder man was saying. "I made known to the Princess the day before yesterday that I intended doing her the pleasure of turning my back on Wilicza, since to that her manœuvres have long been tending. I got no further in my disclosures, for she interrupted me in her majestic way, 'My good Frank, I sincerely regret that you are wishing to leave us; but I will place no obstacles in your path. Be persuaded that your long and active service at Wilicza will be forgotten neither by my son nor myself.' She said that to me--to me, whom she has systematically hunted out! Do you think I could make head against that look and tone? I had intended to relieve my mind at length by telling her the whole truth, as a parting compliment; but at this--I made my bow and went."

The younger man shook his head. "A remarkable woman, but a most dangerous one! We Government men have proofs of it. I tell you, Herr Frank, that Princess Baratowska is a source of danger to the whole province."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the agent, irritably; "but she is a source of danger to Wilicza. She has contrived now to get the whole property under her dominion. I was the last stumbling-block in her way; and, at last, she is ridding herself of me. You may believe me, Herr Assessor, when I say I have held out as long as I possibly could; not for the sake of the post--thank God, I am sufficiently before the world to stand on my own feet any day--but I don't like to think of all I have worked for and accomplished these last twenty years going to the dogs now because the old Polish management is to the fore again. When I came to the place, Herr Nordeck had been dead a few years, his son was living with his guardian at Altenhof, and farmers, foresters, and agents were working the concern merrily as best suited themselves. Here at Wilicza things were worst of all. My predecessor had robbed so openly and audaciously that it grew too strong even for Herr Witold, who, one fine day, dismissed him summarily. The Castle, the magnificence of which was talked of far and wide, stood shut up and deserted. Of the state of things in the village and on the farms about, I can give you no idea. Miserable wood and clay huts tumbling down over one's head, dirt and disorder whichever way one turned; the lower orders cringing, false, and full of pious national hatred to the 'German'; the fields in a condition to make a good farmer's heart sick within him. There was need, truly, of a pair of strong fists to the rescue. It was a good six months before I could send for my wife and children, because, outside the Castle, there was not what to our notions would seem a single habitable house to be found anywhere about. How could it be otherwise? The deceased Nordeck had never done anything but hunt and shoot, and quarrel with his wife, and Herr Witold did nothing at all. There were a few rows regularly each time he came; but, in general, he let himself be led by the nose, and that was pretty well known throughout the place. If the accounts were down on paper in black and white, and the figures added up right, then all was as it should be; whether the expenditure were real or fictitious, he never troubled himself to inquire. What sums I had to ask for at first to bring the concern into anything like order! They were granted me without delay or difficulty; and the fact that I really employed them on the estate, instead of putting them into my own pockets like my worthy colleagues, was a mere hazard. Mine was an exceptional case. But the old gentleman had some glimmering of the fact that I was the only honest man of the whole set, for at the end of the first year he raised my salary and commission, so that I, with my honesty, fared just as well as the others with their thieving; and if he had lived, I should never have left Wilicza, in spite of the Princess's intrigues. She was too wise to attack me in those days. She knew I had only to write to Altenhof and put Heir Witold up to what was going on, and there would have been an explosion. He had still influence enough over his adopted son to procure me liberty of action. During his lifetime I was left in peace; but when he died, all that was over. What good does it do me that my contract guarantees me a free and independent position? When these continual encroachments proceed from the Castle itself and are authorised by the owner's mother, there is nothing for me but either to bear them, or to go. I have borne them long enough, and now I shall go."

"But it is a real misfortune for Wilicza!" struck in the Assessor. "You were the only one who ventured in some degree to resist the Princess, whose sharp eyes inspired a wholesome fear. If you go, they will have full scope for all their secret machinations. We Government men"--he each time laid great stress on these words--"best know what will be the consequences if the Nordeck estates, with all their vast extent and confounded proximity to the frontier, come under the rule of a Baratowska."

"Yes, she has made good progress in the space of four years," said the steward, bitterly. "She set to work on the very first day, and has continued slowly, but surely, advancing always towards her aim with an energy one cannot but admire. When some time ago the farm leases expired, she contrived that they should all be taken up by men of her own nationality. They applied for and acquired them. Herr Nordeck probably never knew that there were any other applicants. From the administration of the woods and forests every German element has been gradually expelled. The whole staff is now composed of obedient partisans of the Princess. How often I have had to interfere in the most energetic manner, in my endeavour to keep my German inspectors and overseers in their situations! It grew to be of no use at last. They went of their own free will, tired out by the refractoriness of the people; and we are pretty well aware who urged and incited the underlings on to resist. I think I know my successor in office. He is a drunken lout who understands as good as nothing of agricultural economy, and who will altogether ruin Wilicza, just as the tenants and foresters are busy ruining the other estates and the woodlands; but he is a National of the purest water, and that is enough for the Princess. He is sure of the post."

"If Herr Nordeck would only make up his mind to come!" said the Assessor. "He has no suspicion, I dare say, of what is going on here on his property."

Frank shrugged his shoulders. "The young master? As if he ever troubled his head about Wilicza! He has never set foot in it for the last ten years; he likes roaming about the world better. I hoped that, on reaching his majority, he would come here for some length of time, and there was some talk of it at first; but he stayed away, and sent us instead his lady mother, who lost no time in assuming the reins of government. None of the officials are in direct communication with him. We send in all our accounts, make our payments, and address all our statements and demands to the magistrate at L----. Besides, before I decided to go, I tried my last resource, and wrote to Herr Nordeck myself. I knew that my position was untenable; but I thought it my duty, after twenty years' service, to make him acquainted with the doings here, and to tell him frankly that, if matters went on so, not even his fortune would be able to stand it. I sent the letter off a month ago, and--would you believe it?--I have never had an answer. No, from that quarter there is nothing to hope.--But with all this worry, I am forgetting that we are sitting in the dark. I can't think why Gretchen does not bring in the lamp as usual. She probably does not know you are here."

"Yes, she does," said the Assessor, in a tone of pique. "Fräulein Margaret was in the hall when I drove up; but she did not give me time to speak to her. She ran upstairs as fast as she could, right up to the garret."

Frank looked a little embarrassed.

"No, no, you must have been mistaken."

"Right up to the garret," repeated the little gentleman, emphatically, raising his eyebrows and looking fixedly at the steward, as though calling on him to join in his indignation; but Frank only laughed.

"I am sorry for it; but with the best will in the world, I can't help you."

"You can help me very much," cried the Assessor, warmly. "A father's authority is unbounded, and if you were to say to your daughter that it was your will and desire ..."

"That I will never do," interrupted Frank, with quiet decision. "You know that I place no obstacle in the way of your suit. I believe you have a sincere affection for my daughter, and I have no objection to make to you either personally or as regards your circumstances; but to obtain the girl's consent is your business. I shall not meddle with that. If she, of her own accord, thinks fit to say yes, you'll be welcome to me as a son-in-law; but I must say there seems to me little chance of it."

"You are wrong, Herr Frank," said the Assessor, confidently. "You are most decidedly wrong. True, Fräulein Margaret sometimes treats me rather strangely--inconsiderately, I may say; but that is nothing but the usual bashfulness of young girls. They like to be sought and won, like to hold back, so as to make the prize of greater value. I understand them perfectly. Make your mind easy. I shall certainly succeed."

"I shall be glad of it," replied the agent, breaking off shortly as the object of their conversation came into the room, carrying the lamp in her hand.

Gretchen Frank might be about twenty. She was no delicate, ideal beauty, but a true living picture of youth and health. There was something of her father's stately vigour about her; and, as the bright rays from the lamp fell on her fresh rosy face, with its clear blue eyes and fair crown of plaits, she looked so charming that it was easy to understand how the Assessor at once forgot that flight to the garret, and sprang to his feet in a violent hurry in order to greet the maiden.

"Good evening, Herr Assessor," said she, returning his greeting somewhat coolly. "So it was you who drove into the courtyard just now. I certainly did not expect that, as you were here only last Sunday."

The Assessor thought proper not to notice the last words. "Official business brings me here this time," he replied; "an affair of great importance which has been entrusted to me, and will detain me in this neighbourhood for some days. I have taken the liberty of making a claim on your father's hospitality. We Government men are having a bad time of it just now, Fräulein Margaret. There is a sort of dull ferment abroad everywhere, secret machinations, revolutionary tendencies! The whole province is one nest of conspirators."

"You hardly need tell us that," said the agent, drily. "I think we are at the fountain head for such news here at Wilicza."

"Yes, this Wilicza is the real centre of all their plots and intrigues," cried the Assessor, warmly. "They dare not play their game so openly at Rakowicz. It is too near L----, and is enclosed on all sides by German settlements. That somewhat shackles the noble Count Morynski; here, on the other hand, he has free elbow-room."

"And the most favourable ground to work on," added Frank; "the Nordeck domain extending to the very frontier, and all the foresters, rangers, and inspectors at the beck and call of the Princess! You would say such a sharp look-out is kept that not a cat could get across without its being known; and yet every night of our lives there is passing to and fro, and all who come from out yonder find open doors at Wilicza, though, to be sure, for the present they are only the back doors."

"We know it all, Herr Frank," asserted the Assessor, with a look which betokened omniscience, to say the least. "All, I tell you; but we can do nothing, for proofs are wanting. We can discover absolutely nothing. At the approach of one of our people the whole busy hive vanishes--sinks, so to speak, into the earth. My present mission is connected with these doings; and as you have the superintendence of the police here, I shall in some measure have to rely on you for help."

"If I must, I must; but you know how unwillingly I lend my hand to such services--though over at the Castle they insist upon it that I am a spy and a detective, because I will not deliberately close my eyes, and when the people turn refractory I proceed against them with all severity."

"But you must. There are two dangerous persons wandering about this neighbourhood under all manner of pretexts, who must be placed in safe custody if possible. I am on their traces already. On my road hither I met two most suspicious-looking individuals. They were on foot."

Gretchen laughed out. "Is that a reason for suspecting them? Perhaps they had no money to pay the post."

"I beg your pardon, Fräulein. They had even money enough for a private post-chaise, for they had passed me in one previously; but at the last station they left the carriage, and made all sorts of the most minute inquiries about Wilicza. They declined the proffered guide, and continued their journey on foot, avoiding the main road, and striking off straight across the fields. They could give no account of themselves to the post-master. I, unfortunately, did not reach the station until after they had left it, and as dusk was coming on apace, all further investigations were at an end for to-day; but to-morrow I intend to set about them in earnest. The two men must still be lurking somewhere in the neighbourhood."

"Perhaps over there, even," said Gretchen, pointing in the direction of the Castle, with its long rows of illuminated windows shining across through the darkness. "There is a great meeting of conspirators this evening at the Princess's."

The Assessor started up. "Meeting of conspirators? How? Do you know it for a certainty? I will surprise them, I will ..."

The steward pushed him laughingly down into his seat again. "Don't let yourself be taken in. It is only an absurd notion of the girl's own, nothing more."

"But, papa, you yourself said not long ago that there are good and special reasons for all the gaieties which are going on at the Castle," interposed Gretchen.

"I certainly am of that opinion. Much as the Princess may love show and splendour, I am convinced that at a time like the present she can have no real heart for such festive doings. These great hunting parties and balls are the simplest, the most convenient pretext for calling all Wilicza together without exciting surprise or remark. They dine and dance, no doubt. Appearances have to be kept up--but most of the guests remain all night at the Castle, and that which goes on when the great chandeliers are put out is perhaps of not quite so innocent a nature."

The Assessor listened breathlessly to a discussion which for him was fraught with the profoundest interest. Unfortunately it was interrupted at this point, the steward's attention being called off. News was brought him that his own very valuable riding horse had been seized by an attack of illness which seemed likely to take a serious turn. Frank went himself to look after the animal, leaving the two young people alone.

Fräulein Margaret was evidently put out by this unexpected tête-à-tête with the Assessor, to whom, on the other hand, it appeared highly acceptable. He twisted his moustaches, passed his white hands through his carefully curled hair, and resolved upon making the most of so favourable an opportunity.

"Herr Frank has been telling me that he intends to give up his post here," he began. "The thought that he and his were about leaving Wilicza would, under other circumstances, have been a heavy blow to me--would have come upon me, so to speak, like a thunderclap; but as I myself am not likely to remain very long in L---- ..."

"Are you going away?" asked the girl, in surprise.

The Assessor smiled self-consciously. "You know, Fräulein Margaret, that to us officials promotion generally means a change of place, and I hope soon to advance in my career."

"Really?"

"Undoubtedly. I am already Government Assessor, and in a state like ours that is saying sufficient. It is in some sort the first rung of the great official ladder which leads straight up to the Minister's seat."

"Well, you have got a long way to go," said Gretchen, rather distrustfully.

The little gentleman leaned back with an air of dignity, as though the cane chair on which he was seated were already the before-named stool of office.

"Such an eminence is not, it is true, attained in a day; but for the future ... one should always keep great things in view, Fräulein, always propose to one's self the highest aims. Ambition is the placeman's spur. As for myself, I daily expect to be raised to the rank of Counsellor."^[2]

"But you have been expecting that a long time," said the young girl.

"Because envy and malevolence are constantly blocking the path," cried the Assessor, with a burst of wounded feeling. "We younger officials are kept down by our superiors as long as we possibly can be. Hitherto I have had no opportunity of distinguishing myself, but at last they have seen the necessity of confiding to me a mission of importance. His Excellency the President himself gave the necessary instructions, and charged me to make a personal report to him of the result of my researches. If things go well, I am sure of the Counsellorship."

He looked so significantly at the young lady, as he uttered these last words, that she could entertain no doubt as to who would be the future Counsellor's bride-elect. Notwithstanding this, she preserved an obstinate silence.

"In that case a change of place would necessarily follow," continued the Assessor. "I should in all probability remove to the capital. I have influential connections there. You do not know the capital, Fräulein ..." And thereupon he began to describe the city life and amusements, to vaunt the influential relatives, skilfully contriving to group all these advantages around himself as central figure. Gretchen listened, half curious, half thoughtful. The brilliant pictures now unrolled before her were seductive to the eyes of a young country-bred maiden. She leaned her blonde head on her hand, and gazed meditatively at the table-cover. Evidently, to her thinking, the drawback lay in that unavoidable corollary of the present Assessor and future Counsellor. The latter saw his advantage right well, however, and made no delay in following it up. He prepared to open a full battery on the besieged fort.

"But, in spite of all this, I shall feel lonely and desolate there," he said, pathetically, "for I shall leave my heart behind, Fräulein Margaret."

Gretchen grew frightened. She saw that the Assessor, who after pronouncing her name had made a long dramatic pause, was now rising from his chair with the unmistakable intention of falling on his knees before her. The solemnity and ceremony with which he went through these preliminaries to a love scene were, however, destined to prove fatal to him. They gave the girl time for reflection. She sprang up in her turn.

"Excuse me one minute. I think--I think the house door has fallen to. Papa won't be able to get in when he comes back. I must go and open it!" and she rushed out of the room.

The Assessor stood with his dramatic pause, and knees half bent to do her homage, the picture of consternation. It was the second time to-day his chosen one had fled from him, and such bashfulness began to be inconvenient. But it never occurred to him to think of a serious resistance. She was acting from caprice, coquetry, perhaps even--the suitor smiled--fear of his irresistible ascendancy. Evidently she dared not say him nay, so took flight in charming confusion, postponing the decisive moment. There was something exceedingly consoling to the Assessor in this thought, and though he regretted having once more failed to attain his object, he never doubted of his final victory. He so thoroughly understood what he was about!

The pretext used by the young girl was not altogether a vain one. The hall door, pushed by some careless hand, had really closed with a bang. It is true that, at his return, the steward would only have had to call from outside to one of the maids to have it opened; but his daughter did not seem to think of this. She rushed through the adjoining room out into the hall.

An exclamation of pain and one of alarm resounded in the same instant. As Gretchen violently thrust open the door, a stranger, who at that very moment had grasped the handle from outside, struck by the sudden rebound, staggered back several paces and would have fallen, if some one who was with him had not caught and supported him.

"Good gracious, what is it?" cried the girl.

"I beg your pardon a thousand times," said a timid voice in a tone of great courtesy.

Gretchen looked up in surprise at the man who excused himself so politely for having nearly been knocked down, while yet in the act of raising himself to an upright posture. Before she had time for an answer, the other stranger drew near and addressed himself to her.

"We wish to see Herr Frank. He is at home, we hear."

"Papa is not here just at this moment, but he will be back directly," replied Gretchen, to whom this late and unexpected visit came as a great relief, offering her the means of escape from her difficulty. Without it, she must either have committed the rudeness of leaving the Assessor alone during her father's absence, or have been compelled to stay with him to keep him company. Instead, therefore, of showing the new-comers into the agent's study, as was customary, she led them straightway into the sitting-room.

"Two gentlemen who wish to speak to papa," said she, by way of explanation, to the astonished Assessor, who looked up and rose as the strangers entered and bowed to him, while the girl, kindly offering to let her father know, went out again for that purpose.

She had just sent off one of the maids, and was about to return to the room, when, to her amazement, the Assessor appeared in the dimly lighted hall, and inquired hastily whether Herr Frank had been sent for. Gretchen answered in the affirmative.

The Assessor came up to her, and said in a whisper--

"Fräulein Margaret, those are the men."

"What men?" asked she, in surprise.

"The two suspicious characters. I have them. They are in the trap."

"But they are not Poles, not a bit of it," objected the girl.

"They are the two individuals who passed me in the post-chaise," he replied, obstinately. "The same who, later on, behaved in a way calculated to arouse suspicion. At all events, I shall take my measures. I shall interrogate, and if necessary arrest them."

"But need it all be done in our house?" asked Gretchen, in a very ungracious tone.

"The duty of my office requires it!" said the Assessor, with dignity. "First of all, the entrance must be secured, to prevent any possible attempt at flight. I shall lock the hall door." So saying, he turned the key in the lock and drew it out.

"What are you thinking of?" protested Gretchen. "Papa won't be able to get in when he comes back."

"We shall post the maid at the door, and give her the key," whispered the little gentleman, who by this time was in a fever of official zeal. "She will open when Herr Frank comes, and at the same time call in the men to guard the door. Who knows whether the delinquents will surrender easily?"

"But how do you know they are delinquents at all? Suppose you were to make a mistake?"

"Fräulein Margaret, you have not the eye of a detective," declared the Assessor, with conscious superiority. "I am a good physiognomist, and I tell you I never yet saw two faces on which 'conspirator' was stamped more legibly, more unmistakably. I am not to be deceived, however pure their German may be. For the present, I will merely subject them to an interrogation, until Herr Frank arrives. It is dangerous, no doubt, to let such men get an inkling that they are found out--extremely dangerous, particularly when one is alone with them; but duty demands it!"

"I will go with you," said Gretchen, valiantly.

"Thank you," said the Assessor, as solemnly as though the girl had resolved on going to the scaffold with him. "Thank you. Now let us act."

He called the maid, gave her the required instructions, and then returned to the parlour, Gretchen following him. She was naturally courageous, and felt quite as much curiosity as uneasiness about the issue. The two strangers had evidently not the smallest notion of the storm about to burst over their heads. They imagined themselves in perfect security. The younger of the two, who was a remarkably tall man, towering more than a head above his companion, was pacing the room with folded arms, while the elder, a person of slight build, with pale but agreeable features, had obediently taken the place offered him, and was sitting harmlessly enough in the armchair.

The Assessor assumed an air of authority. Convinced of the importance of the moment, and conscious that the eyes of his beloved were upon him, he rose to the measure of his task. He looked the judicial mind personified, as he stepped up to the two 'individuals.'

"I have not yet introduced myself to you, gentlemen," he began, courteous as yet. "Government Assessor Hubert, of L----."

The persons addressed could have been no novices in the art of conspiracy, for they did not even change colour at the mention of his official quality. The elder man rose, bowed in silence, but with much politeness, and then sat down again. The younger merely inclined his head slightly, and said in a careless tone, "Very happy, I'm sure.

"Might I in my turn inquire the names of these gentlemen?" continued Hubert.

"What makes you ask?" said the younger stranger, indifferently.

"I wish to know them."

"I am sorry for that. We don't wish to tell."

The Assessor nodded as much as to say: "So I thought." "I am connected with the police department of L----," he said, significantly.

"Very agreeable position," said the stranger, his eyes just glancing at the official with an indifference positively offensive, and then wandering off and fixing themselves on the young girl, who had retreated to the window.

For a moment Hubert was disconcerted. They must indeed be case-hardened conspirators! Even the mention of the L---- police could extract from them no sign of alarm, though by this time some inkling of their fate must have dawned upon them. But there were means of overcoming their obduracy. The interrogation proceeded.

"About two hours ago you passed me in a post-chaise?"

This time the younger man made no answer. He seemed to have had enough of the conversation; but the elder replied civilly, "Certainly, we noticed you in your carriage."

"At the last station you left the post-chaise and continued your journey on foot. You were, according to your own statement, bound for Wilicza--you avoided the high-road, and took a side-path across the fields." The Assessor was sternly judicial now again, as he hurled out these accusations one after the other, in a manner which ought to have been crushing, and which did indeed produce some effect. The elder of the two conspirators showed signs of uneasiness, and the younger, on whom the lynx eye of the official had at once fixed as the more dangerous of the pair, went up quickly to his companion, and laid his hand protectingly as it were on the back of his chair.

"We put on our coats, too, when it began to get cool, and left a pair of gloves at the post-house by mistake," said the latter, with unconcealed irony. "Perhaps you would like to add these two facts to your interesting notes on our conduct and deportment."

"Sir, that is not a tone in which to address a representative of the Government," exclaimed Hubert, angrily.

The stranger shrugged his shoulders and turned to the window.

"You leave us quite to ourselves, Fräulein. Will you not come out and deliver us by your presence from this gentleman's unrefreshing discourse?"

The Assessor was seized with a just wrath; such boldness was more than he could bear. The steward might come in at any moment now, he knew, so he threw to the winds his previous caution, and replied in a lofty tone--

"I fear there is much before you that you will find unrefreshing. In the first place you will give me your names, deliver up your papers. I require it, I insist upon it. In a word, you are suspicious characters."

That blow told. The pale gentleman started up with every appearance of trepidation. "Good Heavens, what do you say!"

"Ah, so the consciousness of guilt makes itself felt at last, does it?" said Hubert, triumphantly. "You winced yourself," he asserted, turning to the other, and looking up at him with an authoritative air. "Do not attempt to deny it. I saw your face twitch."

The young man's face had twitched, no doubt, in the most singular manner at mention of the words "suspicious characters;" and now, as he bent down to his companion, the corners of his mouth worked quite perceptibly.

"Why do you not clear up the matter?" asked his friend, in a low beseeching tone.

"Because it amuses me," was the reply, returned in a voice as low.

"No whispering here," interrupted the Assessor. "No fresh conspiring in my very presence--that I forbid. Once again, your name! Will you give me an answer?"

"Yes, we will," said the younger stranger, drawing himself up. "So you look upon us as conspirators?"

"And traitors to the State," added Hubert, emphatically.

"And traitors to the State. Of course--that is the usual complement."

The Assessor stood petrified at such audacity.

"I call upon you for the last time to give me your names and deliver up your papers," he cried. "You refuse to do either?"

The stranger sat down unconcernedly on the arm of the chair, and crossed his arms.

"Quite correct. The whole conspiracy lies in a nutshell."

"Sir, I believe that you are inclined to jest with me," shouted the Assessor, scarlet with rage. "Are you aware that that will tell very much against your case? The police department of L---- ..."

"Must be in a bad way if it has you for a representative," observed the young man, with imperturbable calm.

This was too much. The insulted official sprang up like one possessed.

"Unheard-of insolence! What, have things gone so far that the authorities are now to be openly scoffed at and treated with contempt? But you shall pay dearly for it! You have insulted and attacked the Government in my person. I arrest you. I will have you handcuffed and conveyed to L----."

He rushed at his adversary, who quietly let him come on, and then with a single movement of his powerful arm sent him back, bounding like a ball on to the sofa near at hand, which happily received him.

"Violence!" he screamed, "violence! an attack upon my person. Fräulein Margaret, fetch your father."

"Fetch a glass of water, Fräulein, and dash it over the gentleman's head," said the stranger. "He needs it."

The girl had no time to obey either of these very different injunctions, for hasty steps were heard in the adjoining room, and the steward, who had seen with extreme surprise the precautionary measures adopted in his hall, and had heard the loud voices, came quickly in.

The Assessor still lay on the sofa, wriggling and kicking in his struggle to get on his legs again, which, in consequence of the shortness of those members and the height whereon he was perched, was a feat difficult to accomplish.

"Herr Frank," he cried, "guard the entrance, call in the men. You have the direction of the Wilicza police--you must support me. I arrest these two persons in the name of ..."

Here his voice deserted him; he fought desperately in the air, and at last, by a violent jerk, managed to get himself into a sitting posture.

The younger stranger had risen and gone up to the steward. "Herr Frank, you hold the direction of the Wilicza police as proxy for me, and you will, I trust, reflect before delivering up your own principal."

"Who?" cried the steward, starting back.

The stranger drew a paper from his breast-pocket and held it out to him. "I come quite unexpectedly, and after ten years you can hardly be expected to recognise me, so this letter may serve for my credentials. You addressed it to me a few weeks since."

Frank cast a rapid glance at the page, and another as rapid at the features of the man before him. "Herr Nordeck?"

That gentleman assented. "Waldemar Nordeck, who in the very hour of his return to his own estates has come near being arrested as a suspicious vagrant. A most agreeable welcome, certainly."

He looked across at the sofa. There sat the Assessor, stiff and motionless as a statue, with mouth wide open, arms pendant, staring at the young landowner as though he were out of his mind.

"What a painful misunderstanding!" said the steward, in great confusion. "I am very sorry it should have happened in my house, Herr Nordeck. The Assessor will regret his mistake exceedingly ..."

The poor Assessor! He was so crushed, he had not even strength to apologise. The master of Wilicza, the man of many millions, of whom the President had lately spoken, saying that, should he come to Wilicza, he was to be treated with special consideration--and he, the subordinate, had threatened to have this personage conveyed handcuffed to L----! Fortunately Waldemar took no notice of him. He now presented his companion to the steward and the steward's daughter.

"Dr. Fabian, my friend and teacher. We saw that the Castle was lighted up, and heard that a great festivity was going on there. I am quite a stranger to my mother's guests, and as my sudden arrival might very naturally have caused some disturbance, we preferred to make a call on your hospitality--at all events, until the visitors take their departure. Besides this, there are some matters I wish to talk over with you, Herr Frank--matters referred to in your letter, which I only received a few days ago. I was travelling, and it was sent on after me from place to place. Could we have half an hour's talk in private?"

Frank opened the door of his study. "May I ask you to step in here?"

Waldemar turned to his friend before going. "Pray wait for me here, Doctor. I trust you are in no danger now of being treated as a conspirator, and I shall soon be back." He bowed slightly to the young girl, and left the room with the steward, having apparently lost sight of the fact of the Assessor's existence.

"Herr Assessor," said Gretchen, going up to that unfortunate representative of the L---- police, "I congratulate you on your promotion."

"Oh, Fräulein!" groaned the unlucky man.

"You will have to acquaint his Excellency the President with the result of your researches, you know, to make a personal report."

"Fräulein Margaret!"

"I have not the eye of a detective, have I?" continued the girl, mercilessly. "Who would have thought that the young heir would have 'conspirator' so legibly, so unmistakably stamped on his countenance?"

It had cost the Assessor a great effort to hold his ground so far. Mockery from those lips was more than he could bear. He rose, stammered an excuse to the Doctor, the principal person concerned being no longer present, and pleaded a feeling of indisposition as a pretext for withdrawing as quickly as possible.

"Fräulein," said Dr. Fabian, rather timidly, but in a compassionate tone, "that gentleman appears to be somewhat eccentric. Is he perhaps ...?" and he touched his forehead with a significant gesture.

Gretchen laughed. "No, sir; but he is burning to advance in his career, and he fancies that a couple of conspirators would help him forward immensely. He thought he had found them in you and Herr Nordeck."

The Doctor shook his head sorrowfully. "Poor man! There is certainly something morbid about him. I am afraid his career will hardly be so brilliant as he hopes."

"I don't think it will," said Gretchen, very decidedly. "Our Government is a great deal too sensible for that!"

FOOTNOTES:

Footnote 1: It is said that the city of Vineta really existed, and that traces of it may yet be seen near Leddin, a village in the island of Usedom, in the Baltic.

Footnote 2: Regierungsrath.

END OF VOL. I.

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