"I WAS THINKING—COUSIN."
The pause before the use of the word and the emphasis upon it told me she had more than her usual meaning.
"I can guess your thought, I believe," I said.
"Well?"
"You were wondering whether you are right still to call me cousin."
"I don't believe what they told me," she replied quickly, for I had guessed her thought.
"What did they tell you? No; I won't ask that either. I will tell you freely all that has to be told."
I paused an instant, and suddenly the clean, clear moonlight which flooded everything so brilliantly seemed to turn chill and fear-laden for me.
The horse moved restlessly, striking the ground harshly with his fore hoof. I stroked his neck to quiet him and left my hand on the crest of it.
"Well?" The question was asked softly and gently.
"It is hard to tell it," I answered in a low and rather unsteady voice.
"To me? Are you afraid of me?" and I felt a hand placed on mine.
"It is hard to speak words that may divide us—but I have deceived you. I am not your cousin. I am not the Prince."
I felt the fingers on mine start and tighten for a second, and then close in a warm, trustful pressure.
"Can I make the telling easier for you? I had made up my mind that that was so; but the rest? Who are you? Don't tell me unless you wish. I trust you none the less. You remember I told you days ago—how long it seems—you had a secret and that I saw it. Now I know part of it; and I am glad of the knowledge—not glad that you are not my cousin Hans; glad only that you have told me. But I am eager for the unknown part."
I could not beat down my feelings to speak coolly; so I waited to fight for my self-control.
"They told me only one thing that should be hard for you to tell me—and that I know was untrue," she continued, as if it were a pleasure to bare her heart to me. "That you were not true to me, but seeking to betray me. I would have laughed at the absurdity if the malignity of such a slander had not maddened me."
"No, I have been no traitor to you," I answered readily. "That I can declare from my soul. But I have kept this knowledge from you. Even that I would not have done but that I could not see how else I could go on helping you. I could do nothing unless men thought I was the Prince."
"Yet you could have trusted me," she said, with a gentle sigh of reproach.
"Had I told you, I could no longer have remained at the castle. It was not that I did not trust you—indeed, I longed to tell you, not only that but all the rest."
"The rest?" she repeated softly in a low voice that trembled; and again I felt her fingers on mine start.
"Yes. The secret at which even you did not guess. I can judge pretty much what these people have told you—that I am an adventurer and an ex-play-actor. There is a secret behind that which I have not shared with a single soul on earth; but I will tell you."
Then I told her plainly of my meeting with von Fromberg, the mistake under which I was first taken to Gramberg, and the chain of circumstances which had kept me from breaking silence as to my identity and had seemed to drive me into accepting the part that had been thrust upon me.
I did not dwell too strongly upon the one motive that had influenced me—the wish to save her from the plot against her safety. But she was quick to read it all; and maybe her feelings for me prompted her to give it exaggerated importance.
She listened almost in silence, merely asking a question here and there when some point was not clear, and at the close she sat thoughtful, and said sweetly:
"It means a great loss to me—and yet perhaps a greater gain."
I looked up with a question in my eyes.
"I have lost my cousin, it seems—surely the truest cousin that ever a woman had; but then I have gained a friend whose stanchness must be even greater than my cousin's, for there was no claim of kinship to motive his sacrifices for me. But, cousin or friend, you are still——" She did not finish the sentence.
"Still what?" I asked.
I think she was going to make some pretty quip in reply, for I saw a smile half mischievous and all witching on her face; but, reading by my looks how much store I set on her answer, she said earnestly:
"The one man in the world who has proved himself as true as steel to me, and whom I trust with my whole heart."
"You may," I answered, with an earnestness equal to her own, and my hand, which was resting on the horse's neck, turned and sought hers, and pressed it in a strong, firm clasp. "Whatever happens," I added, "I can at least be your friend, and I will."
We stood thus awhile, our heart-thoughts in close sympathy, till she started and lifted her head. Those quick ears of hers had caught the sound of a horse's hoofs approaching from behind us.
"Some one is coming. You have not yet told me something. How am I to call you, and by what name to think of you?"
"There is still a longish story to tell, and I will tell it all to you; but for the present we must keep up our play of cousinship until the truth can be safely told. That will not be long now."
"And then? But there, I do not wish our cousinship to end. I am glad to know so much, however. Every time I say 'cousin' I shall think of this talk to-night."
I took the horse's bridle again then, and led him on, for the sounds of the hoofs behind us were growing clear and distinct, and we did not speak until Major Gessler rode up to us.
"You have not got so far as I expected, Prince," was his greeting. "I'm afraid I seemed to leave you rather in the lurch."
"This horse of ours was tired, and we stayed a time on the road," I answered, not without a slight feeling of embarrassment. We should probably have reached the house at Landsberg but for the long halt I had made in telling my story. "But what is your news, major?"
"They are following," he said briefly, and he made a sign to me that something very serious had occurred, which I judged he did not care to tell before Minna.
She saw the gesture and read it also.
"Have they fought?" she asked.
"No, there was no fighting; but the Count von Nauheim has met with a serious accident—very serious."
He thought evidently that any ill news in regard to him might need to be broken carefully to Minna.
"You may speak plainly," I said. "Is he dead?"
"Yes, he is dead. When he ran off in that way, and Signor Praga after him, the shots we heard were fired at the count's horse by his pursuer. His object was not to kill the man, but to prevent his escape. Both shots missed their aim, however, and then he determined to ride the man down. On the brow of the hill, where you saw them disappear, comes a straight bit of road for a couple of miles, at the end of which is a steep, dangerous hill. Both men rode like madmen across the level—Praga, who is a splendid horseman, gaining steadily all the time. Finding that he was being caught, von Nauheim began to punish his horse mercilessly, and when they came to the steep descent the poor brute seems to have stretched himself for a final effort to answer the call on him. For a moment he raced away from the other, but when about half-way down the hill he collapsed suddenly, and dropped like a stone. So frightful was the speed at which they had been going that horse and rider rolled over and over several times in an almost indistinguishable mass. Praga, who was not far behind, had great difficulty in avoiding them and in checking his own horse. When he went back to von Nauheim he found him dead. The stirrups had prevented him from getting free when the smash came, and the horse had fallen on him and rolled over him, breaking his back and crushing the life out of him. He was a horrible sight."
