"That would indeed be an incomparable close to his official career," laughed Gretchen, disregarding her husband's grave look.
"But enough now of this Hubert," broke off Waldemar. "I shall see you again when I come back? I am here at the Castle _incognito_ to-night. It will be some days before I officially return from Altenhof, where I am supposed to be all the time. Now I must go and see my mother and my cousin. The first agitation of the meeting will be over now."
He opened the door, and went into the next room where his family was assembled. Count Morynski was seated in an easy-chair, still holding his daughter in his arms, as she kneeled before him, resting her head on his shoulder. The Count had aged considerably. The thirteen months of his imprisonment seemed to have been so many years to him. His hair and beard had grown quite white, and his face showed indelible traces of the sufferings he had undergone through captivity and sickness, and, above all, through the knowledge of his people's fate. He had been a robust and energetic man when, little more than a year ago, he had taken leave of his sister and daughter at Wilicza; he came back now old and broken, his appearance telling plainly of health irremediably shattered.
The Princess, who was standing by the Count's side, was the first to notice her son's entrance. She went forward to meet him.
"So you have come at last, Waldemar," she said, reproachfully. "We thought you were going to abandon us altogether."
"I did not wish to disturb your first meeting," said Waldemar.
"Do you still insist on being as a stranger to us? You have been so long enough. My son"--and the Princess, deeply moved, held out her arms to him--"my son, I thank you."
Waldemar was folded to his mother's heart for the first time since his childhood, and in that long and ardent embrace the bitter estrangement of years gave way; all that had once been the cause of coldness and hostility between them sank out of sight. Here, too, a barrier was torn down, an invisible barrier, but one productive of much evil, which had too long stood between two human beings bound to each other by the most sacred ties of blood. At length the son had entered into his birthright, had won for himself his mother's love.
The Count now rose in his turn, and held out his hand to his deliverer. "You do well to thank him, Hedwiga," said he; "as yet you do not know all that he has risked in my behalf."
"The venture was not so great as it seemed," Waldemar replied, lightly. "I had smoothed the way beforehand. Wherever there are prisons, bribery is possible. Without that golden key I should never have made my way into the fortress, still less should we have forced a passage out."