In reply to Marishka's questions, now, she was less reticent, and told of the long years at Schloss Szolnok under the Barons Neudeck, father and son, of the coming of Herr Hauptmann Goritz, and of the threat which had hung over them for three years since the dreadful night when her young master had been killed. There had been no heirs to the estate and no one knew to whom the half-ruined Schloss belonged, but each month money had arrived from Germany, and so she and Wilhelm Strohmeyer, her man, and two other servants under orders from Germany, had remained. She had lived here almost all her life. The people in the village a mile away were the nearest human folk, and Baron Neudeck had not endeared himself to them, for once he had beaten a farmer who had questioned the Excellency's right to shoot upon his land. And so the country people passed aside and did not venture up the mountain road which indeed had become overgrown with verdure. And for their part the servants were contented to stay alone. It was very quiet, but as good a place to die in as any other.
Marishka listened calmly, trying to weave the complete story and Captain Goritz's part in it. Whether Schloss Szolnok was or was not the property of the German government—and it seemed probable that it would have been confiscated upon the discovery of Baron Neudeck's treachery—the fact was clear that Goritz was now its occupant and master. She had not dared to wonder what was still in store for her at the hands of Captain Goritz, and had lived from day to day in the hope that something might happen which would end her imprisonment and martyrdom. She heard nothing from the outside, and Ena, who had long ago given up the world, was in no position to inform her.
But as she gained her strength, Marishka knew that she could not longer deny herself to Captain Goritz. The mirror showed her that her face, while thin and wan, was still comely. Wisdom warned her that however much she loathed the man, every hope of liberty hung upon his favor. And so she gained courage to look about her and to plan some means of outwitting him or some mode of escape from durance. The latter alternative seemed hopeless, for it seemed that the castle was built upon a lonely crag, its heavy walls, which dated from feudal times, imbedded in the solid rock. From her bedroom window, below the buttressed stone, were precipitous cliffs which fell sheer and straight to the rocky bed of the stream which rushed through the ravine two hundred meters below. But there would be other modes of egress, and so, feeling that her strength was now equal to the task, she determined to go forth and test the cordon which constrained her. One morning, therefore, she called Ena's attention to her pallid face and suggested the sunlight of the garden as a means to restoration. The woman was delighted, and attired in a costume of soft white silk crepe, which she had fashioned in her convalescence from some posthumous finery that Ena had discovered, Marishka walked forth of her room down a stone stairway into the great hall of the castle; and so into the ancient courtyard where the flower garden was. She had expected Captain Goritz to join her, and in this surmise she was not mistaken, for she had culled an armful of blossoms which she sent to her room by Ena when the German appeared. She heard his voice behind her, even before she had summoned courage for the interview.
"My compliments upon your appearance, Countess," he said soberly. "I hope that you find yourself well upon the road to recovery."
"Thanks," she replied in a stifled tone. "I am feeling much stronger."
"It has been a very pitiful experience for you—one which has caused me many qualms of conscience," he muttered, "but I have tried to atone and would beg you to believe that all my happiness for the future depends upon your forgiveness."
"I can—never forgive—never——" said Marishka, her throat closing painfully. "I hoped to die," she sighed, "but even that you denied me."
"I have only done my duty—my duty, Countess—a sweeter duty than that which urged me to Vienna—to undo the wrong that I have done you, to bring again the roses into your cheeks."
She waved her hand in deprecation. "For your courtesy, for the kindness of your servants, I thank you. But for what you are yourself—only the God that made you can understand—can forgive—that."
He straightened a moment and then slowly leaned against the wall beside her, his chin cupped in his hand.