“She got no farther than the little inn you remember, near Orlamunde. There Hugo Stein had the villany to meet her. He had been to England, had sworn away your cousin Richard Egremont’s life, and returned to Orlamunde. He had enough money to lose at play, to win back the Prince’s favor, and meant to give the Princess the pleasure of his company on her return—the scoundrel! Then, as he was heaping insults upon her at the inn, up comes the Prince with his crew of miscreants, men and women, the Prince very drunk. And in some way—I know not how—there were words, and in ten minutes Hugo Stein and Prince Karl lay dead, each at the hand of the other.”
Berwick paused. He saw that Roger required time to take in all he was hearing. After a while Berwick went on.
“The Prince’s successor—Prince Heinrich—a very different and a very worthy man, was at Orlamunde. The matter was hushed up as far as possible, and the decencies observed. The first thing Prince Heinrich did was to clear the palace and the schloss of the disreputable gang which Prince Karl had established there, and he at once installed the Princess Michelle at the schloss. She remained there, receiving every attention at the hands of Prince Heinrich, until after the funeral. Then she returned to France in a manner becoming her rank and station. She went directly to the house of the Scotch Benedictines, and is there now in the strictest retirement.”
Yes, he knew it. He had known she would go there; he had even felt her presence there as he passed by the house.
The moon was high in the heavens now. Roger found himself alone on the terrace; he did not know when and how Berwick had left him. His footsteps took him down the steep hillside into the silent meadows along the river, black and silver in the moonlight, to the very spot where he had first seen Michelle. Yes, there it was that he had first known the melting softness of her black eyes, first heard the thrilling music of her voice. There she had told him that work, pain, death, lay before all; it was almost the first word she had spoken to him, and it had made him to think and made him to feel. But work, pain, and death, with love at hand, these made up the sum of perfect life. Work was easy; pain could be endured with joy,—he remembered the thorn that pressed into his hand and hers at la Rivière; and death could be met with courage, if only love stood beside him, not only love for Michelle, but love for all of God’s creatures and love of God’s righteousness. This thought soothed the fever in his soul; he was in danger of losing himself totally in the intoxication and the vainglory which had begun to possess him. He looked up at the star-sown vault of heaven. The stars had never seemed to him cold, unseeing, distant. They had ever been to him near, watchful, and palpitating. Their silent voices, eloquent through all the æons of time, rebuked his pride and composed his joy. There would still be work, pain, and death, and also infinite joy, but from those silent stars he humbly learned how to meet them all.
The first note of time he realized was the chiming of midnight. He roused himself, as it were; he was then again on the terrace. The moon shone brightly upon the river, and it seemed to Roger Egremont as if that silver shining on the water made a radiant path of glory to the heavens. All vast, all bright, all joyous, all noble thoughts were his, and they humbled him, and cast him down upon his knees to ask God to forgive him past iniquities and to keep him from committing them again. And his spirit, coming down from those supernal heights, where the mere human soul cannot walk for long, was lost in simple human happiness and thankfulness.
Roger Egremont walked back to the old château. He had no place provided to sleep. It was no matter; he could have slept out-of-doors. He had spent many nights with the sky for a roof and the earth for a bed, but they were generally very miserable nights; this one happy one would be a change. The sentry, however, at the gateway, recognized him and passed him through, Roger giving him a crown; when the soldier, after a little parley, let him pass. Roger went into the guard-room on the left, where other men were sleeping, and wrapping himself in his cloak, with a log of wood from the fireplace for a pillow, fell into the very sweetest sleep he had ever known in his life.
Next morning Berwick told him it was the King’s wish that he should start at once for England.
“There is nothing to keep me,” said Roger. “I desire to leave a message with you to the Princess Michelle, which I beg you will deliver this day. It is that I will not intrude myself upon her in any way during the year of her widowhood; but one year from to-day I shall be wherever she is, and if she will see me on that day I shall esteem it the greatest happiness and privilege of my life.”
“I will deliver it to the Princess this day,” replied Berwick.