"You forget it is locked," said Dick. "It is true, you might call for help, but if you did I should kill you. Do not look incredulous. I know that ordinarily you are a sovereign prince, with a people and an army behind you, and that I am a hunted man, the least powerful in your dominion. But at this moment we are on fairer terms, with just what powers nature gave us, except that I have a sword and you have not. So now it is the weaker man that is my subject, the stronger man that is your prince!"
The Landgrave looked at the door, Dick's sword, then at Catherine.
"Treachery!" he said, in a voice deprived of strength by his feelings. "For this I freed your brother, mademoiselle, trusting you implicitly. It seems one needs more assurance than the honor of a lady-in-waiting!"
"Your highness may recall," said Dick, "that her promise was made on your assurance that a certain person was dead. Did that lie, and the plot by which her brother was tricked into his peril, comport with the honor of a sovereign prince? But this is wasting time and talk. Mademoiselle de St. Valier and I intend to leave this palace unhindered and unpursued. It rests with you as to the state in which you shall be left behind."
The Landgrave looked bewildered. It seemed incredible that a ruling prince should be so helplessly placed, in his own palace, but a second glance assured him that this was no dream,—that the locked door, the sword in Dick's hand, and the expression on Dick's face, were very actual facts.
"Mademoiselle de St. Valier shall never go," his highness said at last. "As for you, I will let you pass out free. I cannot forget the service you rendered the Landgravine."
Dick gave a short laugh of derision. "Can I not get it through your thick skull," he said, "that I am the one in position to offer terms? You sovereign princes of Germany, we are told, have absolute power, but you seem to be very stupid. In my country, we are quicker to grasp a situation. It is a country, too, that has recently declared all men to be, in their rights, created equal. So you see that, to me, the blood of a prince is no more sacred than another man's!"
At this moment there came from the door one of those creaking or straining sounds that seem to occur unaccountably.
The Landgrave gave a start of elation, as if this sound betokened an interruption. But Dick instantly flashed his sword before the Landgrave's eyes, and said:
"If any one breaks in while I am here, he will find something stretched on the floor, and to-morrow the people will cry 'Long live the Landgrave!' for your son. You see that each moment we lose is as dangerous to you as to me, because it brings the possibility of interruption."