"It is for me to say what is necessary in such a case," declared the doctor; and being a strong as well as a masterful man, he picked Gareth up in his arms and told me to show the way to her bedroom.
And in this way she was given back into my care.
CHAPTER XXIX
A SINGULAR TRUCE
It was more than an hour before I could go down to General von Erlanger, and I carried a heavy heart and a bad report of Gareth's condition.
"She is very ill," I told him. "The doctor fears brain fever. At best but fragile, recent events have so preyed upon her that the climax to-day found her utterly broken in nerve and strength. I have left her muttering in half-delirious terror of her father's anger. Where is Count Gustav?"
"Gone away with the doctor, to return later. And now of yourself, Christabel?"
"In the presence of this I feel I do not care. I gathered the gist of all from what Count Gustav said. What was decided? Did the Duke know that Count Stephen was living?"
"No. The thing was planned by his supporters, as he told you last night, to make sure of his leadership being secure at a time when, owing to the Emperor's illness, it seemed that the hour was at hand for the Patriots' cause to be proclaimed. They meant to kill the Count, but some one saved him, and then Katona was persuaded to undertake his guardianship."