"The peace of Europe! I wonder if he was merely trying to frighten me?"
And she shivered a little at the remembrance of Lord Vernon's words, as she arose to go to bed.
CHAPTER XVI
A Prince and His Ideals
By what process of telepathy the Dowager Duchess of Markheim, dwelling in one corner of that gloomy old fortress which had sheltered so many generations of the family, learned of the danger threatening her nephew it would be impossible to say. She had been skilled for many years in telling which way the wind was blowing; nay, more, in foreseeing from which quarter it would presently blow; so perhaps the two or three casual references to the American girls which she had gleaned from the letters which the Prince dutifully wrote her had been enough to awaken her suspicions. Or, it may be, that some one of the many persons at Weet-sur-Mer who had observed with interest the Prince's comings and goings, deemed it a duty to society to send the duchess a discreet word of warning.
Any one who knew the duchess knew also that a single word would be all-sufficient. Her reputation for worldly astuteness surpassed that of any other old woman in Europe, though it was, perhaps, not altogether deserved. Forty years before, she had been a healthy and happy girl, whose experience of the world had been confined to the family estate near Gemünden. And the estate was a small one, for the family, though of blood the bluest, was very poor.
One tragedy had marked her early girlhood. She was curled up, one evening, in the window-seat at the stairhead watching the moon rise over the great trees of the park, when she heard loud voices in the hall below, and peeping down, saw her father strike another man heavily across the mouth. A sudden silence fell, and she stole away frightened to her bed, where she sobbed herself to sleep. In the gray of the morning, her mother had awakened her, had carried her to a window, and knelt with her there, staring out toward the park and calling upon God to have mercy. Through the streaming mist, there came presently toward them two dim figures, carrying a third—what need to go on? After that, the house became a cloister.
It chanced, one day when she was nearly twenty, that the eye of her cousin of Markheim fell upon her. He had never married; he had been too busy with his pleasures. But he had arrived at an age when it was necessary to think of an heir; at an age, too, when the uneasy consciousness began to grow within him that if he desired an heir, there was no time to be lost. So he looked at his blooming cousin, noting the evidences of vigorous health which glowed in eye and lip and cheek. He knew that the girl would have no dot, but he had reached a place where he was perfectly aware that if he wanted youth and beauty, he must take them unadorned. So he made up his mind at once, and in due time the marriage was arranged.
In pity, we will not dwell upon it. Those who saw the bride's face as she entered the carriage with her husband will never forget its expression of horror, disgust, and abject fear. A year later, the desired heir arrived, a microcephalous idiot, to whom a merciful providence allowed but eighteen months of life; and in due time, the August Prince himself was gathered to his fathers.
During her period of martyrdom, the duchess had pressed her cross to her bosom with the religious enthusiasm of a devotee hugging his barbed instrument of torture. The consciousness that she was suffering for her family's sake as became a daughter of the Caesars was the only thing which enabled her to endure her shame and degradation. She donned her widow's weeds with such depth of thankfulness as few mortals know, and settled herself to the enjoyment of her position.