"Leave the place instantly," the Count roared to Thaddeus.
"I go, Arline," Thaddeus answered sorrowfully.
"Never!—unless I go with thee," she declared, quite overcome by the situation. "Father, I love thee, but I cannot give up Thaddeus," she protested sorrowfully to the Count. Then the Count drew his sword and rushed between them.
"Go!" he cried again to Thaddeus, and at the same time the Queen urged him to go with her. Then Arline begged to be left alone with her father that she might have a private word with him. Everybody withdrew except Thaddeus, wondering what next, and how it would all turn out.
"Father," Arline pleaded when they were alone, "I am at your feet. If you love me you will listen. It was Thaddeus who restored me to you; who has guarded me from harm for twelve years. I cannot give him up, and to send him away is unworthy of you." The Count made a despairing gesture of dismissal to Thaddeus.
"But, father, we are already united," she urged, referring to the gipsy marriage. At that the Count was quite horrified.
"United?—to a strolling fellow like this?" This was more than Thaddeus could stand, knowing as he did that he was every bit as good as the Count—being a Polish noble. True, if he revealed himself, he might have to pay for it with his life, because he was still reckoned at large as the enemy of the Emperor, but even so, he decided to tell the truth about himself for Arline's sake.
"Listen," he cried, stepping nearer to the Count. "I am not what you think me. Let this prove to you my birth," and he took the old commission from his pocket where he had carried it for years, and handed it to the Count. "This will prove to thee, though I am an exile, that I am a noble like thyself; and my birth does not separate me from thy daughter." The Count read the paper tremblingly and then looked long at Thaddeus. Tears came to his eyes.
"The storms of a nation's strife should never part true lovers," he said softly, at last: "Thy hand!"—and taking Thaddeus's hand he placed it tenderly in that of Arline. As they stood thus united and happy, the Queen appeared at the window, pointing him out to a gipsy beside her. The gipsy was about to fire upon Thaddeus at the Queen's command, when Devilshoof knocked up the gipsy's arm, and the bullet meant for the lover killed the revengeful Queen.
"Guard every portal—summon all the guests!" the Count cried. "Suspend all festivities," at which the music which had been heard in the distant salon ceased, and the guests began to assemble. Arline rushed to the arms of Thaddeus. The Count explained all that had occurred, the danger Thaddeus had just been in, that he had been given the Count's daughter, and that congratulations were in order.