'I thank you,' he said very low, with great humility, with intense emotion. For a moment he thought——should he tell her, should he trust this deep tenderness which could brave death; and might brave even shame unblenching? He looked at her from under his drooped eyelids, and then—he dared not. He knew the pride which was in her better than she did——her pride, which was inherited by her firstborn, and had been the sign manual of all her imperious race.
He looked at her where she stood with the light falling on her through the amber hues of painted glass; worn, wan, and tired by so many days and nights of anxious vigil, she yet looked a woman whom a nation might salute with the pro rege nostro! that Maria Theresa heard. All that a great race possesses and rejoices in of valour, of tradition, of dignity, of high honour, and of blameless truth were expressed in her; every movement, attitude, and gesture spoke of the aristocracy of blood. All that potent and subtle sense of patrician descent which had most allured and intoxicated him in other days now awed and daunted him. He dared not tell her of his treason. He dared not. He was as a false conspirator before a great queen he has betrayed.
'Are you faint, my love?' she asked him, alarmed to see the change upon his face and the exhaustion with which he sunk, backward against the cushions of his chair.
'Mere weakness; it will pass,' he said, smiling as best he might, to reassure her. He felt like a man who slides down a crevasse, and has time and consciousness enough to see the treacherous ice go by him, the black abyss yawning below him, the cold, dark death awaiting him beyond, whilst on the heights the sun is shining.
That night he entreated her to leave him and rest. He assured her he felt well; he feigned a need of sleep. For fifteen nights she had not herself lain down. To please him she obeyed, and the deep slumber of tired nature soon fell upon her. When he thought she slept, he rose noiselessly and threw on a long velvet coat, sable-lined, that was by his bedside, and looked at his watch. It was midnight.
He crossed the threshold of the open door into his wife's chamber and stood beside her bed for a moment, gazing at her as she slept. She seemed like the marble statue of some sleeping saint; she lay in the attitude of S. Cecilia on her bier at Home. The faint lamplight made her fair skin white as snow. Bound her arm was a bracelet of his hair like the one which he wore of hers. He stood and gazed on her, then slowly turned away. Great tears fell down his cheeks as he left her chamber. He opened the door of his own room, the outer one which led into the corridor, and walked down the long tapestry-hung gallery leading to the guest-chambers. It was the first time that he had walked without assistance; his limbs felt strange and broken, but he held on, leaning now and then to rest against the arras. The whole house was still.
He took his way straight to the apartments set aside for guests. All was dark. The little lamp he carried shed a circle of light about his steps but none beyond him. When he reached the chamber which he knew was Egon Vàsàrhely's he did not pause. He struck on its panels with a firm hand.
The voice of Vàsàrhely asked from within, 'Who is there? Is there anything wrong?'
'It is I! Open,' answered Sabran.
In a moment more the door unclosed. Vàsàrhely stood within it; he was not undressed. There were a dozen wax candles burning in silver sconces on the table within. The tapestried figures on the walls grew pale and colossal in their light. He did not speak, but waited.