The congenial task concluded, she had another to perform. The courier from Heiligenstadt, whither the King had repaired on a tour of military inspection, had brought her a second letter—also a love cry, or it might better be described as a love-bellow. The Burgrave, away on duty with his sovereign, appealed from a distance to his obdurate wife.
He was filled with amorous longing, jealousy, despair. How long was he to be exiled from her favour? The situation was past endurance! He implored, groaned, rebelled, threatened, and was abject again—all in a few frenzied lines. The gist of the whole was in the last phrase: "When am I to be forgiven? Am I not your husband?"
The answer to this effusion required but a flourish of the pen. Yet, as the lady planted a green wafer upon the second envelope, there was a triumphant smile upon her lip, a vindictive gleam of pleasure in her eye. The despatching of her morning budget had been altogether pleasurable.
* * * * *
Close by, in the little chamber allotted to her, Sidonia, behind locked doors, was engaged upon a similar task; for to her the courier had also brought a letter demanding instant acknowledgment. It was a very short one, and by no means so loverlike as either of Betty's billets.
"I have been slightly indisposed" (wrote Steven) "and unable to travel for a few days; but I trust to be in Cassel within the week, and shall seek you in the Palace. It must be clear to you that you owe me at least an explanation. It is impossible that we can part for ever thus.
"STEVEN."
Not a word of love! Not a hint of despair! Not even reproach! It was all cold, cruel business. As Sidonia wrote her reply, the tears dripped so quickly that she could scarce see the paper.
Eliza, very brisk and tripping, who had the charge of posting the three letters, studied the superscriptions very carefully before committing them to the royal mail. Her eyes grew round at sight of the pink-wafered note. Diable! If the mistress had such correspondence, it might become a question whether Jäger Kurtz would continue to be good enough for the maid. She smiled vindictively at sight of the green wafer. If she knew her lady, the Chancellor was far from being fully paid out yet. "And serve him right," said she, who would herself be long before she forgave Burg-Wellenshausen for the horrors of its tedium.
The old-fashioned sheet that bore Sidonia's childish scrawl she weighed awhile reflectively in her hand. Madame la Burgravine would doubtless give something to see the contents of that letter.... Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, she sent it on its voyage with the rest. The service of her lady had its advantages; and Eliza, pining in the Burg, had stuck to it with unerring prescience of better days. But it did not follow that she held no opinions of her own. And she had even a kind of good-nature that did quite as well as a conscience, as far as her neighbours were concerned, and was far more agreeable for herself.