“Is your mistress within?” I pursued.
She dropped a curtsey, and after a comprehensive glance over my person threw open the door. Would the gentleman walk in? She brought me through a brick-paved hall into a long low oak-panelled room, all dark and yet all shining with polish. It was very hot from a high china stove.
“What visitor shall I announce to the gracious lady?” she asked, sidling towards me, and thrusting her apple face as forward as she dared.
“I am so old a friend, in fact, I may say so near a connection, that I should like to give your gracious lady a pleasant surprise,” said I; “I will not therefore give my name.” As a propitiatory after-thought, I pinched the hard red cheek and dropped a coin into her apron pocket. I tried to make my smile very sweet, but it felt stiff upon my lips. She, however, saw nought amiss, and pattered out well content.
Then followed a few minutes’ waiting; all had grown still again around me. Through the deep recessed windows I looked forth into a little courtyard with one bare tree. This, then, was the home Ottilie had chosen instead of an English estate, instead of Tollendhal, instead of all I could offer her in courtly Vienna or great London! How she must love this man! Or was it only the plebeian instinct reasserting itself in spite of all?... The Court doctor’s lady!
I heard a footfall on the bare-boarded stair, and with a smile that was this time the natural expression of the complicated bitterness of my soul, I moved a few steps so as to place myself in the best light.
My wife was, perhaps, still in ignorance of my escape from death. Anna had not yet carried her grievous news of the failure of their endeavours. Indeed, this was evident from the general placidity of the household, as well as the staid regularity of the approaching steps. To witness her joy at the discovery was sufficient revenge for the moment. After that the reckoning would be with—well, with my successor.
Such was the state of my thoughts at the crucial moment of my strange story.
I have said that I was calm, but during the little pause that took place between the cessation of the footsteps and the turning of the lock I could hear the beating of my own heart like the measured roar of a drum in battle.
Then was the door opened, and before me stood—-not Ottilie, who had been my Ottilie, but the other Ottilie, the Princess! She was advancing upon me with the old well-remembered gracious smile, when all at once she halted with much the same terror-stricken look with which Anna earlier in the day had recognised me, and clasped her hands, crying: