“For whom?” the old man asked, with astonishment.
“For Maximilian.”
The other four men recoiled.
Half an hour after the house was empty. The comrades had dispersed. It was to be after many years, and under widely different circumstances, that some of them were to meet again.
Meanwhile Maximilian ascended the throne and reigned in peace.
CHAPTER I
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
“Can you see him, father?”
The old forester looked round, and saw his daughter coming down the narrow path, bordered with dwarf apple trees, which led from the front door of the cottage to the garden gate.
Answering by a slight shake of the head, he turned round again, and leant over the gate, resuming his occupation of drawing long slow puffs at a huge pipe which he held in one hand. The pipe had a long cherry-wood stem, ending in a deep china bowl, which was capped with a lid of copper. From the holes in this lid came thin blue spirals of smoke, which floated away till they were lost to view against the green background of forest.
Dorothea ran forward lightly, her white muslin skirts just touching the espaliers as she passed, and, coming up to the gate, leant over it beside her father. She rested her soft cheek against his arm, and gazed with dreamy eyes at the smoke-rings, trying to follow them till they dissolved in the surrounding atmosphere.