“Your Highness cannot mean this.” The earnestness of my tone moved her, and she cast at me a quick glance of appeal.
“Cannot you see that it is impossible?” But I felt I must be deaf to any appeal.
“You have trusted me so completely that I should be untrue to you and to all concerned in this matter, Princess, if I listened to you. Believe me, it must not be. Her captivity is our only road to safety. We have dealt with this spy of hers, and she herself told me that he was flying the country in a panic. She alone holds this terrible—this knowledge of our plans, and if she remains at large, nothing can save our scheme from shipwreck. You know, even better than I, what effect a word breathed in the General’s ear would have. Believe me, I dare not let her free. No harm shall come to her. Not a hair of her head shall be injured; but in our charge she is and must remain. There is no possible alternative.”
She locked her fingers tightly in the stress of her perplexity, and a strained, drawn expression showed on her face.
“No, no; it is impossible, impossible,” she cried, in a tone of distress. “I see the dangers, but this I—I cannot and will not do.”
The mocking words which the Countess had spoken when I was locked in the room with her gave me the clue to the struggle in the Princess’s mind, and I dared not ask her to tell me her reasons, that I might combat them. But with me they had no weight.
“This is no matter, Princess,” I ventured to say, “in which any considerations but the most impersonal reasons of policy can be allowed to prevail. I beg you earnestly to pause before taking a step that on my soul I know must be fatal to everything.” The words brought a look of flashing reproach.
“You tell me this. Can’t you see what would be said of me if I sanctioned such a thing? No, no, no; I cannot, I cannot, I will not,” she cried impetuously.
My eyes fell before hers, but yield I would not.
“Will you permit me to withdraw now, and we can speak of this matter another time? Meanwhile——”