"Here comes our fair and bountiful companion of last night," said Algernon Grey; "I will see her rise into the sky before I go; but then, to show how moderate and discreet I am, and to encourage you to give me some more hours of liberty hereafter, I will tell my fair gaoler that I am ready to return to my prison."
"Strange," said Agnes, looking up in his face with a smile, and leaning a little more heavily upon his arm, "strange that it is I who must ask the prisoner to remain at large for a while; but you know not that you have a visit this night to make, to one, who will thank you on Agnes Herbert's account, for all you did last night."
"Your uncle," asked Algernon Grey.
"No," replied Agnes; "it is to a lady, a kind and noble one. The Electress Louisa, she is anxious to see you, and bade me bring you to her whenever I hear her bell ring. It will not be long first; there she sits in that room, where the lights are shining through the open windows; and when she thinks that the bustle of the day is fully over in the castle, she will give us notice."
"She loves you much, I doubt not," answered Algernon Grey. "'Tis strange to find here one of my own fair countrywomen, domiciled in a different land, and so linked with a foreign race. There can be no relationship, surely, between you and this Palatine house?"
"The Electress calls me cousin," answered Agnes with a smile, at the half-put question; "but it is a far and not easily traced relationship. Mine is a strange history, my noble deliverer; but, doubtless, every one's is strange, if we knew it all--yours, you say, as well as mine?"
"Most strange," answered Algernon Grey; "and if we meet often, I must tell it to you--Yes, I will," he repeated in a low murmur, as if speaking to himself; but then added, "not now, not now, I cannot tell it now."
"Whatever it is," said Agnes, "I am sure it will show nought but honour and high deeds on your part--I have had proofs of it; and as you, like other men, have mingled in the world, your story will be, doubtless, one of action; while mine is more the history of my race than of myself, for I have done nought and suffered little in this life. Spoiled by kind friends; supported, protected, and left to follow my own will--often, perhaps, a wayward one--reverses, as yet, I have not known; no strong emotions, either of grief or joy, have visited my breast; and the part of life already gone has lapsed away like a morning dream in pleasant but faint images, scarce worthy the remembrance. You shall tell me your history, if you will; but I cannot promise yet to be as sincere, mine being, as I have said, the history of others rather than my own."
"I will tell mine, nevertheless," answered Algernon Grey. "It were better that one, at least, should know it."
As he spoke, they heard a bell ring; and Agnes exclaimed, "That is the signal of the Electress. Now come with me;" and, leading the way into the castle again, she ascended a long spiral staircase in one of the small towers, and then, proceeding along a well lighted corridor, she passed the top of a broad flight of steps exactly opposite to a large door surmounted by a gilt coronet. A few steps farther on, entered a small room on the right, where, to the right again, was seen another door apparently leading into the chamber, one entrance of which they had already passed. Here Agnes paused and knocked; and a sweet voice from within instantly answered, "Come in, dear child." The lady then opened the door, and, beckoning Algernon Grey to follow, advanced into the room, which I have already described as the scene of Agnes's interview with the Electress Dowager in the morning.