The Princess looked at him uneasily. "Leo, your uncle has given you leave of absence?" she asked suddenly, seized, as it were, by some vague dread.
"Yes, yes," replied the young Prince, keeping his eyes averted from his mother's face. "I tell you all has been foreseen and arranged. I am posted with my detachment in the woods about A----, in an excellent position, well covered. My adjutant has the command until I return."
"And Bronislaus?"
"My uncle has assembled the main forces at W----, quite close to the border. I cover his rear with my troops. But now, mother, ask me no more questions. Where is Waldemar?"
"Your brother?" said the Princess, at once surprised and alarmed, for she began to divine the secret connection of events. "Can it be that you come on his account?"
"I come to seek Waldemar," Leo broke out with stormy vehemence, "Waldemar and no one else. He is not at the Castle, Pawlick says, but Wanda is here. So he really did bring her over to Wilicza like a captured prey, like a chattel of his own--and she allowed it to be! But I will show him to whom she belongs. I will show him--and her too."
"For God's sake, tell me--you have heard ..."
"What happened at the border-station? Yes, I have heard it. Osiecki's men joined me yesterday. They brought me word of what they had seen. Perhaps you understand now why I came over to Wilicza at any risk?"
"This was what I feared!" said the Princess, under her breath.
Leo sprang up, and stood before her with flashing eyes. "And you have suffered this, mother; you have stood by looking on while my love, my rights, were being trampled under foot--you who can control, can command obedience from every one! Has this Waldemar subdued you too? Is there no one left who dares oppose him? Fool that I was to allow myself to be talked out of calling him to account before I left, to be dissuaded from taking Wanda away to a distance where no further meeting between them would have been possible! But"--speaking now in a tone of bitter sarcasm--"but my suspicion was an insult to her, and my uncle accounted my 'blind jealousy' as a crime. Can you see now with your own eyes? Whilst I was fighting to the death for my country's freedom and salvation, my betrothed was risking her life for the man who openly declares himself on the side of our oppressors, who has set his foot on our necks here in Wilicza, just as the tyrants out yonder have tried to crush our kindred and friends. She betrays me, forgets her country, people, family, all, that she may shield him in a moment of peril. Perhaps she will try to protect him from me; but she had better beware. I care nothing now which of us perishes, whether it be he or I, or she with us both."