"Quite. If he once has an interview with his mother, he will be persuaded to desert. Her eldest son she has already drawn into the net: he is now a recruiting officer in the Hungarian service, and is busy raising troops. But if Richard fails to meet his mother, and still refuses to join the insurgents, a ball will be sent through his head at the critical moment—so Fritz assures me. Two of his own men have vowed to shoot him if he opposes their wishes. So he has but a short shrift in any case. By to-morrow evening he will be either a dead man, assassinated by one of his troopers, or, if he attempts to desert, a prisoner in the hands of Major Palvicz; and, in the latter case, he will be shot day after to-morrow. It is all one to me how it turns out. I don't wish him the ignominy of a public execution, although he has given me reason enough to hate him."
When Sister Remigia at length aroused Edith and led her, apparently half asleep, down to the carriage, Antoinette accompanied them with a light, explaining as she went that all the men-servants had been called away to the barricades. Her real purpose was to see Edith safely seated in the coach, and sound asleep by the nun's side. She had only the vaguest suspicions regarding her niece, but it was best to take no chances.
The heavy coach rumbled slowly through the dark streets. Perhaps the driver himself was half asleep. When they were well on their way, Edith opened her eyes and peered cautiously about. Her sole thought was to make her escape, even if a thousand devils stood guard at the carriage door, and the ghosts of all who had fallen in the last few days haunted the unlighted streets of the city. Sister Remigia was already fast asleep; it was her eyes, not Edith's, that refused to hold themselves open after the evening's ample repast. The chartreuse had done its work.
Assuring herself of her companion's condition, Edith softly opened the door at her side and sprang lightly to the ground, unperceived by the deaf and sleepy coachman. Swiftly, and with wildly beating heart, she ran back toward the heart of the city, leaving the coach to lumber on its way without her. It was only with difficulty that she could find her way in the dark. The tall tower of St. Stephen's loomed up ahead of her, and thither she turned her steps, hoping to find some one in that neighbourhood to direct her farther. With limbs trembling, and heart anxiously throbbing, now that she was safe from observation, the poor girl hastened on as best she could. Twice as she ran she heard the great tower-clock strike the quarter-hour, and she knew she must have gone astray; for half an hour suffices to go from one end of the inner city to the other. Coming to a street corner, she paused and looked about for the tower, and at last made it out on her right. Then she knew where she was, and concluded that Singer Street must be somewhere in the vicinity. As she stood there in uncertainty, the great clock struck again—midnight this time—and, as it struck, a fiery rocket shot upward from the turret's summit,—a signal seen and understood by some one in the distance.
By the bright but momentary glare of this rocket, Edith's eyes sought in all haste the name of the street in which she stood. With a thrill of joy, she read on the wall over her head the word "Singerstrasse." Now she had the Ariadne clue in her hand, and, before the rocket burst and its light suddenly went out, leaving her in apparently deeper darkness than before, she had learned that the house next to her was number 1, and that consequently all the numbers on that side of the street were odd. By simply counting the doors she could soon find number 17.
Feeling her way with her hands like a blind person, lest she should omit a door in her course, Edith moved slowly from house to house, counting the numbers as she went.
"Thirteen, fifteen," she whispered; "now the next will be seventeen. Who is there?" she cried suddenly, starting back in alarm as her hands encountered a human form.
"The blessed Virgin and St. Anne!" exclaimed the unknown, equally frightened. It proved to be an old woman who was crouching in the doorway, and over whom Edith had unwittingly stumbled.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" panted the girl, recovering from her fright. "You see I was so startled at finding any one here."
"And I was startled, too," rejoined the other. "What do you wish here, miss?"