"If you wish to save me, you must give in, too—and marry me. I don't care about anything else. Gustav is the man they all want. Let them have him. I told you I had no sympathy with the whole thing. I only held out because somewhere in the back of my mind there was an idea that the thing was a mistake, and that if I insisted on retaining my heirship, I might stop it all. But that means losing you again. I can't do that. I can't."
He was so dejected, so worn with the struggle which he had made at my bidding and for my sake, that if I had been in a firmer mood I could scarcely have urged him. And if I tell the truth, I was in anything but that firmer mood. The gates of happiness yawned wide in front of me, and my heart was urging and spurring me to enter them. I was very weak just then.
"You are ill and not yourself," I said.
"Yes, I am ill—but worse in mind than in body. If I had known what it meant when you laid your hand on my arm that day in the Stadtwalchen and I gave that little bottle to you, I wouldn't have done it. I would do it again to win you, Christabel, but not to lose you."
"I saw the Duke last night—or rather he came to see me."
"My father?" he exclaimed, in great surprise.
"Yes, he wished to see what Colonel von Dreschler's daughter was like."
"Did he tell you I had written to him?"
"No. He did not mention your name—but he promised that my father's memory should be cleared, and even that his old title and his estate should be restored."
"Then I've done something to help you, after all, Christabel? I'm glad;" and he smiled. He had no knowledge of all that lay beneath the surface; and I did not tell him. "I wonder what he thought of you," he added, after a pause.