The emperor shook his head. "Nay, your eyes are not weak. You can bear the fullest light of day; you have no need to hide your honored head from the gaze of the world. Take courage, dear friend, and think of what we both have said. Have we not our principles to defend? And must we not both assert them courageously?"
"Your majesty is right," cried the old count. "I am ready to follow you."
And while Carl Podstadsky, awaking from his swoon, looked up into the face of the malefactor, who from henceforth was to be the companion of his sleeping and waking, and the witness of his despair—while one of along train of outlawed felons, he dragged his misery through the hot, dusty streets, his father drove with the emperor to Schonbrunn, and among all the brilliant guests who dined with him on that day, to none was the emperor so deferential in his courtesy as to the old Count Podstadsky-Liechtenstein.
CHAPTER CLXII.
THE NEMESIS.
Meanwhile where was the siren who had lured Szekuly to destruction? Where was she for whose sake Carl Podstadsky had precipitated himself into the waters of obloquy? When the waves had engulfed him, she had disappeared, and the last sounds that had rung in his ears were the sounds of her cruel mirth!
Was there no punishment in reserve for such atrocity? No punishment for this woman without heart, without pity, without remorse? Would no hand unmask this beautiful fiend?
The hand is ready, but it is invisible; and Arabella, in her newfound security, is dazzled at the magnitude of her own good fortune. "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first blind." True, she had lost her gold, the price of Szekuly's good fame; but she was not poor; her jewels were worth many such a coffer of ducats. Once in possession of her casket, she was again rich, happy, and courted. Not a creature, save Giuseppe, knew the whereabouts of this precious casket, and with it they must away to Paris!
It was dusk, and Giuseppe, with a travelling carriage, once more awaited his mistress at the corner of the street. There remained nothing to do now but to remove the coffer from its hiding-place, and that was the work of half an hour. Arabella had the key of the little postern, and there was no danger of spies, for the house was empty. Having avowed herself to be the pensioned mistress of Podstadsky, the law had placed its seal upon her effects, and they were all to be sold for the benefit of the count's creditors.
The night was dark, and the street lanterns were propitiously dim. Here and there was heard the step of a solitary foot-passenger, and from time to time the monotonous tramp of the patrol. One of these patrols had just passed the garden-wall of the hotel, of which the Countess Baillou had been the presiding goddess. He looked up at the darkened windows as he went, wondered whither the goddess had flown, and walked on. When the echo of his step had died away from the pavement, and the last beams of the lantern were flickering out, a dark, slender form emerged from one of the pillars of the wall, and glided toward the little side-door, which opened on that narrow street. The key was in the door, it clicked in the lock, and the figure disappeared within. All was quiet.