"God grant it!" sighed Fabian. "If only that fellow Hubert were not over at W----, precisely to-day of all days. He would recognise Waldemar and the Count in any disguise. Suppose he should meet them!"
"Hubert has been doing stupid things all his life, he won't be likely to do a clever one now in the last week of his official career. It is not in him," said Gretchen contemptuously. "But he is right in one thing. One no sooner sets foot in this Wilicza than one finds one's self in the midst of a conspiracy. It must be in the air, I think, for I don't understand else how we Germans allow ourselves to be brought into it, how it is we are made to conspire in favour of these Poles, Herr Nordeck, papa, even you and I. Well, I hope this is the last plot Wilicza will ever see!"
The Princess and Wanda had remained in the adjoining room. Nothing had been changed, either here, or in any of the other apartments, since she had left them a year before; yet there was a desolate, uninhabited look about the house, which seemed to say that the mistress had been long absent. The lamp, which stood on a side-table, only lighted up a part of the dark and lofty chamber; the rest of it lay altogether in shadow.
In this deep shadow sat the Princess, motionless, her eyes fixed on vacancy. It was the very place in which she had sat on the morning of Leo's fatal visit, of that visit which had resulted in so terrible a catastrophe. The mother struggled hard against the recollections which assailed her on all sides at the return to a place so associated with her most cruel griefs. What had become of those proud, far-reaching plans, of those hopes and projects which had all found their centre here. They lay in ruins. Bronislaus' rescue was the one concession wrung from Fate, and even this rescue was but half achieved. Perhaps at this instant he and Waldemar were paying with their lives for their attempt to consummate it.
Wanda stood in the recess of the centre window, looking out with a fixed, strained gaze, as though her eyes could pierce through the darkness reigning without. She had opened the window, but she did not feel how sharply the night air smote her, did not know that she shivered beneath its breath. For the Countess Morynska this hour contained no remembrance of the past, with all its shattered plans and hopes; all her thoughts were concentrated on the coming event, as she waited in an anguish of expectation and deadly suspense. She no longer trembled for her father alone, but for Waldemar also--_chiefly_ for Waldemar, indeed, her heart maintaining its rights, spite of everything.
It was a cool and rather stormy night; there was no moonlight, and the stars, which here and there twinkled forth in the overcast sky, soon disappeared again behind the clouds. All around the Castle there was peace, deep peace; the park lay silent and dark, and, in the pauses between the gusts of wind, each falling leaf might be heard.
Suddenly Wanda started, and a half-suppressed exclamation escaped her lips. In an instant the Princess stood by her side.
"What is it? Did you see anything?"
"No; but I thought I heard the sound of horses' hoofs in the distance."
"Mere fancy! You have so often thought you heard it. It was nothing."