“As you will. The Russian preparations are all but complete; Russian troops are being hurried to the Black Sea; the slightest sign or movement on your part will be seized on as the pretext for measures as drastic as Russian measures commonly are; and you yourselves, you two in particular and all associated as leaders with you, will be treated you can guess how. Russia knows how to treat her friends badly enough; but no one ever yet accused her of not dealing effectively with her enemies. You have been blind, Count; but then a man in love is seldom anything else.”
It was useless to pretend that I was not vastly affected by what the Prince told me. I read in it ruin and worse than ruin to everything, and my heart sank at the prospect before Christina.
“Your warnings, and more, the kindly motives that have prompted them, have moved me deeply, your Highness.”
“They had better move you out of Bulgaria. But that is your personal affair. I have told you, because of the service you rendered to one who is now, I regret, your enemy.”
“Your Highness knows of the attempt on the Princess Christina’s life,” I asked.
“To my shame and sorrow, I do. She must not think that I would have countenanced such a thing for a moment,” he said in tone of deep pain.
“She does not,” I assured him.
“That you thwarted it is another service you have rendered me, which adds to my eagerness to help you both to safety. But even on the throne here I am powerless to help my friends. Ay, and even my friends are driven to inflict deeper wounds upon me than my enemies.” His manner was that of a weak, hopeless, dejected, sorrow-broken man. “You have spoken of that deed, and I will tell you. Since I knew of it, I have refused to see the Countess. I cannot see her again; and I learn that in the mad hope of helping my fallen cause she has been in communication with Kolfort, leading him to think that I could be induced to remain here. And I declare to you, Count, I do not pass an hour, day or night, that is not care-ridden by the fear of some yet more desperate deed she may attempt—the consequences of which must fall on my head. Every step she takes adds to either my danger or my disrepute. And I can do nothing.” He wrung his hands in weak unavailing despair.
I rose to leave; and, looking up half-eagerly, he asked:
“And will the British Government do nothing?” The question was so absolutely inconsequential, and suggested motives behind it so utterly at variance with his attitude and words, that I was surprised. At one moment he was declaiming against the miseries of his position, and yet now he was clinging to the throne, like a drowning man to a spar, with a vague reasonless hope that even England would risk a war with Russia to maintain him upon it.