It was the Princess who had come in unnoticed. How the last year with all its cruel blows had told upon this woman! When, in the old days, her son had met her in C---- after a separation of years, she had just suffered a heavy loss; then as now she had been draped in deepest mourning. But her husband's death had not bent her proud energetic spirit; she had clearly recognised the duties devolving on her as a widow and a mother, had designed, and steadily carried out, the new plan of life which for a time had made her ruler and mistress of Wilicza. She had overcome her grief, because self-control was necessary, because there were other tasks before Baratowski's widow than that merely of deploring his loss, and Princess Hedwiga had ever possessed the enviable faculty of subordinating her dearest feelings to the outward calls of necessity.
Now, however, it was otherwise. The mourner still bore herself erect, and, at a first cursory glance, no very striking alteration might have been remarked in her; but he who looked closer would have seen the change which Leo Baratowski's death had wrought in his mother. There was a rigid look on her features; not the quiescence of still resignation, but the dead calm of one who has nothing more to hope or to lose, for whom life and its interests have no further concern. Those eyes, once so imperious, were dull now and shaded; the proud brow, which but a year before had been smooth as marble, was furrowed with deep lines, telling of anguish, and there were patches of grey in the dark hair. The blow, which had fallen on this mother, wounding her mortally in her pride as in her affections, had evidently attacked the very well-springs of her being, and the defeat of her people, the fate of the brother, whom, after Leo, she loved more than all on earth, had done the rest--the once inflexible, indomitable spirit was broken.
"Have you really been plying Wanda with argument and remonstrances again?" said she, and her voice too was changed; it had a dull, weary sound. "You must know that it is all in vain."
Waldemar turned round. His face had not cleared; it was dark and wrathful still, as he answered--
"Yes, it was all in vain."
"I told you so beforehand. Wanda is not one of those women who say No to-day and to-morrow throw themselves into your arms. Her resolution, once taken, was irrevocable. You ought to recognise this, instead of distressing her by re-opening a useless strife. It is you, and you alone, who show her no mercy."
"I?" exclaimed Waldemar fiercely. "Who was it, then, that suggested this resolution to her?"
The Princess's eyes met his without flinching. "No one," she replied. "I, as you know, have long since ceased to interfere between you. I have learned by too bitter experience how powerless I am to oppose your passion ever again to attempt to check it, but I neither can nor will prevent Wanda from going. She is all my brother has in the world. She will only do her duty in following him."
"To her death," added Waldemar.
The Princess was sitting now, wearily resting her head on her hand.