"But the duke may marry."
"What! old Bogislaus IV?" asked Prudentia, with a merry burst of laughter.
"Yes—and have heirs."
"Very likely," replied Prudentia drily; "for heirs often come into noble families when they have no business to be there."
So great was her terror of Merodé, that Gabrielie scarcely ever dared to undress; she slept by snatches, closing her eyes like a child lulled by weariness and weeping; and often started, thinking that she heard the voice of her sister, addressing her in the accents of affection and tenderness, or distress and despair; or imagining that she felt the hateful touch of the crime-blackened Merodé, or saw the handsome face, the grave, dark, honest eye of Ian Dhu. Frequently she thought herself again in the little dogger, rolling over the foam-crested waves of the Lesser Belt, and that friends were beside her. Then she would spring from the couch of the beautiful but guilty Spanish girl, to look forth on the dawning day, and the young alder-trees, that waved their green branches beneath the old grey tower of Helnœsland.
At last, one morning Prudentia disappeared, and all the valuables of Merodé—his diamond order of Carinthia, his massive gold chain with his holy medals, his purse, &c.—vanished with her, and all the magnificent jewels he had placed at the disposal of Gabrielle, who was doubly shocked on discovering the character of the woman who had been her companion; and that she was Prudentia, the celebrated dancer, and the sister of the infamous Bandolo; for in the first burst of his anger, the count told every thing. The horror of Gabrielle increased. The remembered sweetness of the dancer's manner, seemed now all acting and professional study; her wit became levity, her charming candour, impudence.
Gabrielle felt more than ever the impossibility of trusting any of those around her, and her heart shrunk within itself. Dreading his own officers, none of whom were very scrupulous, Merodé kept her so secluded that now she saw no one, save an old German woman, the wife of a Fourrier de Campement, whose waggon for retailing beer and tobacco, or exchanging them for plunder, had followed the regiment from Vienna.
As one day will suffice for a specimen of the system pursued by the incorrigible Merodé, I will select that on which he last did Gabrielle the honour to place at her disposal his hand as well as his heart; for he was now beginning to reflect, that if she ever procured her freedom, without some such guarantee (for her silence) as matrimony, old Rupert-with-the-Red-plume, who certainly was, as he knew, then en route for Stralsund, at the head of a column of infantry, might take a terrible vengeance on the whole house of Merodé.
The room occupied by Gabrielle was low and gloomy; it had two windows arched and grated:—one faced the Lesser Belt, and the shore of Alsen, about ten miles distant; the other opened to the promontory on which the tower was situated, and overlooked its spacious garden. There, the parterres were bordered by deep edgings of old boxwood; the older hedges and alleys formed labyrinths, overtopped by the rustling leaves of the shady beeches. About their old stems, the purple bramble and the yellow honeysuckle grew in heavy and matted clusters, while long dark wreaths of spiral ivy clambered along their gnarled branches. Here and there, to terminate the vista of the long shady walks, were placed several ancient stones, covered with hideous emblems, and those mysterious Runes, the invention of which is ascribed to Odin, ruler of the elements and king of spells.
Gabrielle seldom gazed into the garden, for some of Merodé's officers were usually seated on the benches there, playing chess, smoking, drinking, or toying with some of the ladies who had occupied the waggons seen by Father Ignatius. Her sad eyes were constantly fixed on the blue waters of the Belt; there liberty and freedom seemed to be; the passing ships—the sky and ocean—with the seabirds floating like white specks amid the sparkling azure.