Atkins tried to hold her back. "For God's sake!" he cried, "remember that we are in a foreign land, amid the storms of war; it is night, you could not possibly go alone."
Jane did not listen; she had already thrown her travelling cloak around her shoulders.
"Remain here, Mr. Atkins. If we should all three leave the castle, they might suspect us. You could have no influence over Henry; I must speak to him myself."
She was out of the door, and down the steps, before Atkins' expostulations were at an end. Involuntarily he wrung his hands.
"What an infernal night this is! This blue-eyed German has brought us all three into mortal danger! But Jane is right, I ought not to go out--it is better for them to arrange this among themselves. She must find him in the park. He can be nowhere else."
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
A Mortal Agony.
The broad, forest-like park of the castle of S. lay bathed in the clearest moonlight and enveloped in the deepest silence, interrupted only now and then by the heavy tread of the patrols, who at the captain's order were pacing up and down. They had finished their round through the principal avenue, without encountering any suspicious person, and had now separated according to the orders given them, to explore the adjoining thickets and pathways. Frederic took the left, the other two the right, and they were to meet again on the terrace.
Slowly, his musket in hand, Frederic marched forward on the designated way. He needed not to hasten; there was plenty of time; nor to step lightly, a thing always exceedingly difficult for him; he had as before stated, met nothing suspicious on his round. Frederic was not fitted for any service demanding great intelligence, but he perfectly understood and would conscientiously execute the command to keep his eyes and ears open, to hold the strictest watch possible over all around, and at the slightest disturbance, hasten back to the castle to give the alarm. This responsible service had one great advantage for Frederic; it demanded his strictest attention, and left him no time for unavailing regrets over his master's absence, or troubled apprehensions as to his fate.
He had gone over a part of his beat, and was now close by the statue of Flora, which reared its white, moon-lighted form in the midst of a broad, grassy expanse. It had been particularly impressed upon him not to pass the shell-covered grotto near by without throwing a sharp glance within. Just as he reached the statue, he paused, and placed his hand on the lock of his musket. But he lowered the weapon even before a cry of alarm had broken from his lips. A long, white dress, beneath a dark travelling cloak, had betrayed a woman's form looming up behind the shrubbery; and as the figure now stepped out into the full moonlight, he recognized Miss Forest.