Chapter Thirty Three.
Which Contains a Surprise.
“Betrayed you, Léonie!” I echoed. “I have not betrayed you!”
“But you have!” she declared angrily, her eyes flashing upon me. “You have broken your oath to me.”
“I have broken no oath,” I answered calmly; adding, “Let us sit down and talk quietly.”
“Talk quietly!” she cried, speaking rapidly in French. “Do you think I can talk quietly with ruin staring me in the face?”
“In what manner does ruin threaten you?” I inquired, placing my hand upon her arm in an effort to calm her.
She was terribly agitated, I could see, and her anger knew no bounds, although she was striving strenuously to suppress it.
“You have betrayed my secret—the secret of my love for you!” she cried. “That letter which you promised me to destroy is in the hands of my bitterest enemy.”
“Forgive me, Léonie,” I cried quickly. “The letter was mysteriously stolen from that writing-table there. How, I know not.”
“Cannot you even guess who is the thief?”
I hesitated. The only person I suspected was Edith, who had been the solitary occupant of that room while she waited for me. It was after her departure that I found the drawer in confusion and the letter missing.
“I have suspicion,” I replied with some hesitation, “yet I feel assured it is unfounded.”
“Of whom?”
“Of a friend.”
“A friend of yours?” she exclaimed quickly. “Therefore, an enemy of mine. It is a woman. Come, admit it.”
“I admit nothing,” I answered with a forced smile, my diplomatic instinct instantly asserting itself.
“Is it a woman, or is it not?” she demanded.
“I am not compelled to answer that question, Léonie,” I remarked in a quiet voice.
“But having betrayed me—or rather having allowed me to be betrayed—it is surely only manly of you to endeavour to make amends!” she cried reproachfully. “Even if you do not love me sufficiently to make me your wife, that is hardly a reason why you should expose me to my enemies.”
“I have not done so wilfully,” I declared. “As the letter has been stolen by an enemy, I feel sure that the suspicion resting upon my friend is unfounded.”
“But if the thief is a woman and she loves you, she would naturally be my enemy, and seek to overthrow me,” argued the Princess logically.
“It is my fault,” I said. “I regret the incident, and seek your forgiveness, Léonie. I had no idea that spies and thieves surrounded me, as apparently they do, or I would have destroyed it instead of keeping it as a cherished relic of one of the few romantic incidents of my life.”
“You w’ere very foolish to keep it, just as it was foolish of me to have written it,” she observed. “Cannot you see how compromised I am by it? I have offered to betray to you a secret of State, a secret known only to kings, emperors, and their immediate advisers, in return for your love. I am self-condemned,” she added wildly.
“But into whose hands has the letter passed?” I inquired, now quite convinced of the extreme gravity of the situation.
“Into the possession of a man who is my most bitter enemy in all the world. Ah, you don’t know, Gerald, how I am suffering!”
She placed her hand upon her brow, and stood rigid and motionless.
“Why?”
“Because this man, with the evidence of my treason in his possession, is endeavouring to force me into a hateful bondage. To save myself,” she added hoarsely, “I must obey, or else—”
“Or else what?” I inquired, looking at her in astonishment.
“Or else escape exposure and ruin by another method, more swift and more to be trusted.”
“I don’t understand you. What do you mean?”
“Suicide,” she answered in a low, hard voice, regarding me coldly, with a truly desperate look in her eyes.
“Come, come, Léonie,” I said quickly, “to talk like that is absurd.”
“No, it is not in the least absurd,” she protested, a heavy, serious look upon her face. “Like yourself, I am the victim of a vile conspiracy. This man has long sought to entrap me, and has, alas! now succeeded.”
“For what reason?”
She remained silent, as though doubting whether to tell me the whole truth. In a few moments, however, she made a sudden resolve.
“Because he wishes to marry me,” she answered briefly.
“And by holding this letter as a menace he now seeks to force you into a marriage that is distasteful?”
“Distasteful!” she echoed. “I hate and detest him! Rather than marry him I would prefer suicide.”
“Why?”
“Because if I do not accept his conditions for the return of that letter he will expose me,” she answered in despair.
“Has he threatened this?”
“Yes.”
“And what is your response?”
“I have refused, Gerald. Even though he were not so hateful I could not marry him, because I love you.”
She was trembling with agitation, and tears stood in her fine eyes.
“Love for me is out of the question, Léonie,” I answered kindly, yet firmly. “Now that you find yourself in this critical situation it is for us both to strive to frustrate this enemy of yours. It is my duty to assist you.”
“Ah, you cannot!” she said in a tone of utter despair. “The power he holds over me by possessing the written evidence of my treason—my offer to betray to you the secret of my Emperor—is complete, and he is well aware of it. He demands marriage with me, or he will ruin me, and brand me as a traitress to my country and my Emperor.”
“This man is, of course, now aware of what passed between us during my visit at Chantoiseau?” I said.
“He knows everything,” she answered. “I was living quietly at Rudolstadt, and endeavouring to forget you, when of a sudden, a fortnight ago, there came to the castle a stranger, who sent in his card sealed in an envelope. My servants regarded him with some suspicion, and well they might, for when I opened the envelope and took out the card I knew that at last the blow had fallen. He had dared to come and seek me there.”
“You saw him?”
“Yes, he demanded an interview. We had not met for nearly two years, yet he approached me with a declaration of love upon his lips. I laughed at him, but presently he held me dumb by producing from his pocket the compromising letter. He began by pointing out how easily he could ruin me socially, and prove me to be a traitress. He made an end by offering to place the letter unreservedly in my hands on the day I became his wife.”
“He had declared his love to you before?”
“Yes, two years ago. But I knew him too well, and hated him too thoroughly, to take a favourable view of his ridiculous declaration.”
“And this man?” I asked. “Who is he?”
“He was once in the employ of my father, Prince Kinsky von Wchinitz, and was administrator of the estates at Wchinitz and Tettau, in Bohemia. Immediately my husband died and the feudal estates of Schwazbourg passed into my possession, as well as those of my late father, this man pressed his claim. He first endeavoured to pay court to me; then, on finding I was cold to his attentions, he became threatening, and I was compelled to discharge him. Afterwards he drifted away, became a chevalier d’industrie, and at last, because of my refusal to hear his repeated declarations of affection, he made a dastardly attempt upon my life.”
“He tried to kill you?” I exclaimed incredulously.
“Yes,” she responded. “Had it not been for the timely intervention of a stranger—a person whom I did not see—he would have murdered me.”
“Through jealousy?”
“Yes, through jealousy.”
“And this fellow’s name?” I asked, my anger rising at the thought of a discharged employé thus holding Léonie in his power, and, despite the fact that he had made an attempt upon her life, badgering her to marry him. “Is there any reason why I should not know it?”
There was a brief silence. She hesitated to tell me, and not until I had pressed her several times to disclose to me his name would she answer.
“The man who is seeking to drive me to destruction and to suicide is,” she replied reluctantly, “an adventurer of the worst type—a man who is seeking to make a wealthy marriage at the expense of a woman whom he holds in his power, and whom he can ruin at any moment if he chooses.”
“His name? Tell me.”
“His name is Count Rodolphe d’Egloffstein-Wolfsburg.”
I held my breath, utterly amazed by this disclosure.
“The man known as Rodolphe Wolf?” I cried—“the adventurer who fell into the hands of the police at St. Petersburg, and served nine months’ imprisonment as a rogue and vagabond?”
“What! you know him?” she demanded in surprise. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“A friend!” I echoed. “No, not a friend by any means. An enemy, and a bitter one.”
“Then he is mutually our enemy?” she declared.
“Most certainly,” I answered, adding, “What you have just told me, Léonie, reveals to me the truth regarding several incidents which have been hitherto unaccountable. Was Wolf actually in your father’s employ?”
“Yes, for years. He was the younger son of old Count Leopold d’Egloffstein-Wolfsburg, whose small estate joined that of Tettau, and, after a wild career in Vienna and Paris, returned home a ne’er-do-well. My father, in order to give him another chance in life, gave him control of a portion of the estates, and, finding him shrewd and clever at management, ultimately made him administrator of the whole, which position he filled up to the time when, after my husband’s death, I discharged him on account of dishonesty and of the constant annoyance to which I was subjected by him. When he left me he vowed that one day I should become his wife, and it seems that in order to gain that end he has been scheming ever since.”
“He is a spy in the French secret service,” I observed thoughtfully, for strange reflections were running through my mind at that instant.
“I have heard so,” she answered. “But that is not actually proved, is it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is it possible that he himself stole the letter from your desk there? Has he ever been here?”
“Never, to my knowledge. He would never dare to enter here,” I replied. “No, that letter was stolen by one of his accomplices.”
“A woman?”
“Yes, I think it was a woman.”
“A woman whom you love, or have loved, Gerald? Come now, be perfectly frank with me.”
“You guess aright,” I answered, remembering that as far as I was aware she knew nothing of the existence of Edith Austin.
A dark look crossed her features.
“Then if that woman knew the contents of the letter she had a motive of jealousy,” argued the Princess.
“She may have had. At any rate I have suspicion that, acting under Wolf’s instructions, she abstracted the letter and handed it to him without previous knowledge of what it contained.”
“No, I scarcely think that. Wolf would tell her that I loved you and was her rival in your affections, in order to incense her against me. What is her name?”
I kept silence for a moment, reflecting upon the wisdom of telling her the truth at that juncture. At last I resolved that, as our interests were mutual, there should be no secrets between us.
“She is English, and her name is Austin—Edith Austin.”
“Edith Austin!” she cried in dismay. “And you love her?—you love that woman?”
“Why do you speak of her in that manner?” I demanded.
“Austin—Austin?” she repeated. “It is certainly not the first time I have heard that name. Certainly her reputation is not above suspicion. And you actually love her, Gerald?” she added in a blank tone of reproach. “Is it really possible that you love her?”
“Why?”
“Because Bertini—who was once in the Austrian service, and is now a secret agent of the French—told me in Vienna not long ago that one of the most successful French agents in England was a young girl named Edith Austin. She must be the same. I know Bertini well, although he is not at all a desirable acquaintance. And you love this girl—you, in your responsible position at the Embassy? Is it not extremely dangerous?”
I admitted that it was, but expressed disinclination to discuss the matter further, feeling that the more we talked of it the deeper would be the pain I caused to the handsome and desperate woman before me.
“You told me just now that Wolf once made an attempt upon your life,” I said presently. “These words of yours have given me a clue to an incident which has to me long been a mystery.”
“How?”
“Listen, and I’ll tell you. One day in late autumn two years ago I alighted at the little station of Montigny, on the line to Montargis, in order to ride through the forest of Fontainebleau to Bois-le-Roi, and return thence to Paris by rail. I am fond of the forest, and when I can snatch a day, sometimes go for a healthy spin through it, either riding, cycling, or on foot. Having lunched at the little inn at Marlotte, where my mare was stabled, I started off on the road which, as you know well, leads through the wild rocks of the Gorge aux Loups to the Carrefour de la Croix du Grand Maître in the heart of the forest, and thence away to the town of Fontainebleau. The afternoon was gloomy and lowering, and darkness crept on much more quickly than I had anticipated. It had rained earlier in the day, and the roads were wet and muddy, while the wind that had sprung up moaned dismally through the half-bare trees, rendering the ride anything but a cheerful one.
“By six o’clock it was already quite dark, and I was still in the centre of the forest, galloping along a narrow by-way which I knew would bring me out upon the main road to Paris. The mare’s hoofs were falling softly upon the carpet of rain-sodden leaves when of a sudden I heard a woman’s cry of distress in the darkness close to me. A man’s voice sounded, speaking in German, and next instant there was the flash of a revolver and a loud report. The light gave me a clue, and, pulling up, I swung myself from my saddle and without hesitation rushed to the woman’s assistance. I slipped my own revolver from my pocket and sprang upon the man who had fired, while at the same instant the woman wrested herself from the assassin’s grasp. By means of the white shawl she wore about her head I saw her disappearing quickly through the undergrowth. With a fierce oath the man turned upon me, and, as we struggled, endeavoured to get the muzzle of his weapon beneath my chin. I felt the cold steel against my jaw, and next instant he pulled the trigger. My face was scorched by the flash, but happily the bullet went harmlessly past my cheek. I had dropped my own weapon early in the encounter, and now saw that the only way in which I could save my life was to beat the fellow’s head against a tree until he became insensible. This I succeeded in doing, tripping him suddenly, forcing him down, and beating his skull against a tree-stump until he lay there motionless as a log. Then I took his weapon from him, and, striking a match, bent down to see his face. To my astonishment I found that he was a man I had known slightly several years before—the man who holds you within his power—Rodolphe Wolf.”
“And the woman who so narrowly escaped death—indeed, whose life was saved by your timely aid—is the woman who loves you—myself!” she cried.
“I never dreamed, until your words just now gave me a clue to the truth, that you were actually the unknown woman who escaped from the hands of the assassin,” I said.
For answer she grasped my hand warmly and looked straight into my eyes, though she did not utter a single word.