“Is it, indeed, so?”
And Helen’s eyes dimmed as the thought of parents, home and love filled her heart with tenderest gratitude, for she had long been an orphan.
“Leibchen, it is true; to-morrow you shall see and know how dear you already are to them, for I write often and they wait eagerly to receive you.”
Helen felt herself going very fast, and made an effort to harden her heart, less too easy victory should reward this audacious lover.
“I may not go; I also have friends, and in England we are not won in this wild way. I will yet prove you false; it will console me for being so duped if I can call you traitor. You said Casimer had fought in Poland.”
“Cruelest of women, he did, but under his own name, Sidney Power.”
“Then, he was not the brave Stanislas?—and there is no charming Casimer?”
“Yes, there are both,—his and my friends, in Paris; true Poles, and when we go there you shall see them.”
“But his illness was a ruse?”
“No; he was wounded in the war and has been ill since. Not of a fatal malady, I own; his cough misled you, and he has no scruples in fabling to any extent. I am not to bear the burden of his sins.”