'Was our loss great?' asked old Gyllenstierna, assorting his cards.
'They speak of seven hundred,' answered the governor: 'and the loss would have been still greater and perhaps wholly in vain, had not the king himself and a young volunteer placed themselves at the head of the faltering troops and led them on to victory.'
A delightful anticipation thrilled the bosom of the listening Georgina. And in the self-forgetfulness of love, she was even upon the point of stepping forward and asking the narrator the unbecoming question of the name of the volunteer, when the father of her beloved spared her the pain of witnessing the courtier's contemptuous smile, by himself putting the question.
'My informant named him Gyllenstierna,' answered Taube: 'but as your excellency's son has gone to Armfelt's camp, I suppose I must have misunderstood him.'
'Who knows!' murmured the old count, calling to mind the last unavailing request of his son; and in pondering upon all the possibilities of the case he lost his game.
'Were it not for that,' proceeded Taube, 'I should have much pleasure in congratulating your excellency. The king advanced the brave volunteer to the grade of captain of the guards upon the spot.'
'My hero! my Arwed!' exulted Georgina in her heart, and her white hand waved a fond kiss towards the west.
'Such transient gleams of military success give me more anxiety than pleasure,' said Ulrika. 'They decide not the main question, and serve only to increase my brother's obstinacy. His game is lost beyond remedy. Continued misfortune would finally open his eyes and induce him to take the only course by which he can save himself.'
'That would have happened long ago,' whispered Taube to her, 'did not baron Goertz, through his fata morgana, know how to keep up his sinking hopes.'
'Very true!' said Gyllenstierna. 'And had it not been for his experiment of debasing the coin, this campaign would have been impossible.'