“There was one thing more,” said Anna in her stolid way: “she bade me say she would contrive to see you somehow soon, but that as you love her you must keep hidden.”
I shut my eyes for a second to taste in the secret of my heart the honeyed savour of that little phrase that meant so much: “as you love me!” for there rang the unmistakable appeal of love to love! And I smiled to think that she still reserved the telling of her secret. I guessed it was because she was pleased that I should want her for herself, and not for the vain pride that had been our undoing.
And then, with my bold resolve a thousandfold strengthened, I caught Anna by the arm.
“Now listen,” said I, and stooped to bring my lips to her ear. “When I went out this afternoon it was to good purpose. I have seen Frau Lothner.... I know all.”
“Lord God!” cried Anna, and snatched her hand from mine and threw her arms to heaven, her long brown face overspread with pallor; “and she has seen you, has recognised you—the Court doctor’s wife! Then God help us all! If the secret is not out to-day it will be to-morrow. Oh, my poor child, my poor child!” She rocked herself to and fro in a paroxysm of indignant grief.
“But,” said I, trying to soothe her that she might listen to my plan, “Madam Lothner is an old friend of mine, she is devoted to the Princess, she has a kind heart, she has promised me discretion.”
“She!” said Anna, and paused to throw me a look of unutterable scorn. “She, the sheep-head! in the hands of such an one as the Court doctor! My lord, I give you but to midnight to escape! for as it happens—and God is merciful that it happens so—the Margrave has sent for the doctor at his camp of Liegnitz, and he will not return until after supper.”
“So be it,” said I gaily; “escape I shall, Anna, but not alone.”
The woman’s sallow face grew paler yet. The depth of the love for the child she had nursed at her breast gave her perspicacity. Her eye sought mine with fearful anticipation.
I drew her to the furthest end of the room and rapidly expounded my project, which developed itself in my mind even as I spoke. Outside the snow was falling fast. All good citizens were within doors; there was as yet no suspicion of my presence in the town; the palace was quiet and my bitterest enemy was absent; to delay would be to lose our only chance. The passion of my arguments, none the less forcible, perhaps, because of the stress of circumstances which kept my voice at whisper pitch, bore down Anna’s protests, her peasant’s fears. I had, I believe, a powerful auxiliary in the woman’s knowledge of all that her beloved mistress might be made to suffer upon the discovery of my reappearance. She felt the convincing truth of my statement, that if the attempt was to be made at all it must be made this very night, and she saw too that I said true when I told her I would only give up such attempt with my life.