CHAPTER XXV
'TWIXT LOVE AND PITY
Long before midnight Frina Mavrodin had completed her work of preparation. The servants who were in her confidence had been told of the coming of the Princess. Some were at the main entrance ready to admit her if she came that way; others were waiting at a small door which opened from the garden into a side street. They were instructed to show surprise, but not consternation, should any officer of the King demand admittance, and servants were stationed on the stairs and in the corridors, a signal arranged between them, so that news of any such demand might be immediately conveyed to the Countess silently, and without any man rushing to her and causing suspicion to those who entered.
"If Captain Ellerey comes, let him pass to me at once," she said. "And at the usual hour put out all lights that shine upon the street. This house must seem to sleep, no matter how wakeful it may be."
Only a dim light burned in her own room, which looked toward the garden, and here the Countess paced up and down with slow, thoughtful steps. She had changed the dress she had worn at Court that night for a soft, loose gown of delicate rose color, caught in at the waist by a silken girdle of a deep shade of the same color. A filmy cloud of lace was about her throat, and fell over her shoulders and from the short loose sleeves.
Once or twice she stopped before a glass to set a wayward tress of her hair in its place, or to arrange the falling folds of the lace, and perhaps lingered for a moment in contemplation of her own reflection, half conscious that she looked fairer dressed as she was than in Court attire of costly silks and flashing jewels.
Many times she paused at the open window, drawing aside the curtains to listen for footsteps in the garden, and she listened often for footsteps in the corridor. Princess Maritza was coming; perhaps Desmond Ellerey would come, too.
How to outwit the King should Desmond Ellerey fall into his hands, she did not know. She thought of little else as she paced the room, but no solution of the problem came to her. If he should be taken, it seemed as if he must suffer for the cause into which he had been pressed. If by her betrayal of others he only could be saved, she knew now that he must perish. There was no thought in her mind of writing out a list of names to send to the King to-morrow. She put her hands before her eyes to shut out the hideous vision which rose before her— Ellerey standing with folded arms, facing a dozen loaded muskets waiting for the order to fire; but even in her vision the face of the so-called traitor, firm, resolute, determined, in this supreme hour, as it had been throughout his life, as it would be in reality when such time came, thrilled her soul and made him only the greater hero.
"Oh, to be at his side then!" she exclaimed in a low voice. "What would
I not give to share that death with him?"
But Ellerey was not yet in the King's hands, that seemed certain. She felt convinced that some time before the dawn she would see him; that he would enter the house to stand by Maritza's side to the last. Had she not power to save him then? There was a way of escape for the Princess; that same way could Desmond Ellerey go. He and Maritza should go together to find in some other land a quiet haven of happiness.