“Patkul thinks there is no hope at all for Livonia,” murmured Hélène. “He saw in the battle of the Dwina what these Swedes are.”
“I think my countrymen are tolerably good soldiers,” said the Countess.
The Saxon girl disliked her for this remark, and turned away abruptly; the beautiful, comfortable room seemed to her hateful; she ran to the door, pulled it open, and fled down the dark stairs; she heard the Countess’s voice half-laughing, half-angry, raised in protest, but she took no heed; nothing mattered to her now in the world but the fact that she must see her lover again before a separation that, some dreadful premonition told her, would be long if not eternal.
She could not explain to herself why she was so terrified and overwrought; this love of hers, born amid the tumults of wars and factions, had known many bitter partings and long absences, but youthful hope and joy had hitherto kept her immune from the terrors that assailed her to-night. She must see him again; it was as if her body moved without motion, so strong was the force of the spirit within, as if the cold night air carried her, a disembodied creature, to his side.
It was now nearly dark, the town full of soldiery and discontented civilians; Hélène did not notice these things nor yet the bitter cold; she hastened along the frozen roads, the dried snow flying from beneath her feet, the fresh snow, beginning to drift in flakes from the leaden sky, falling on her dark clothes and chilled face and hands.
She found the house where he lodged; it was not far from the residence of the King-Elector. At the sight of the light in the windows the blood seemed to stir in her body again; he was still there; she would see him again, nothing seemed to matter but that the whole future narrowed to this moment of their meeting.
A Polish soldier was just leaving the house. Hélène brushed by him, stepped into the dim-lit hall, and asked the Livonian servant standing there for his master.
Before the man had time to reply General Patkul appeared in the doorway of a room immediately inside the entrance.
They advanced towards each other, and he seized her in his arms and almost carried her into the room.
It was a small rough chamber, lit by an oil lamp and a log fire; some half-packed valises lay on the floor and the table was strewn with papers, portfolios, and maps.