“Good news. Lieutenant von Bertheim is here, unhurt and——”
“With the Baron?” she asked incredulously.
He smiled. “No. I may be bold to claim penetration enough to agree with your Highness as to the improbability of that. No. The Lieutenant is not, indeed, within the castle, but he is not far away.”
He watched the ray of joy on the girl’s face, and as he watched and welcomed he hated it.
“I have come,”—he proceeded—“the reason of my disturbing you, Princess, by bringing the news in person, was that I might venture to submit a proposal which might earn your pardon.”
Her look invited him to speak further, and as he drank it in, he inwardly cursed the contrary fate which gave to another man this coveted interest for which he would have bartered his soul—subject, indeed, to the Master whom he so zealously served having already a lien upon it.
“I understand the situation,” he said with a subtle smile. “And that the Chancellor’s plans are not exactly in accord with your own. He is inclined to interpose himself between you and your happiness, to think less of romance, of hearts, than of state policy. It is not for me to interfere, nor would I do so, since Lieutenant von Bertheim has treated me in a manner which is at least strange, were it not that I owe your Highness some reparation for the presumption into which my ignorance led me. I wish to atone by giving you an opportunity of meeting the Lieutenant before your departure with the Baron Rollmar.”
Her desire broke down the pride which prompted her not to be beholden to this man for an interview with her lover. She loathed the idea of taking him into her counsels, even for the moment. Still she felt that, once more in Rollmar’s power, the separation would be indefinite, might be life-long, for, surely, he would not be hoodwinked again. So she yielded to the temptation, not without hesitating at a suspicion of treachery. Still, something had to be risked, and she conceived a vague idea that her lover and she might again escape together. The Count seemed genuinely repentant; what could be his motive, but that which appeared on the surface? He would scarcely attempt a deed of violence while that grim old man was beneath his roof, and the idea of the two being partners in a plot did not seem probable. Rollmar was too shrewd to take a stranger, practically a foreigner, into his confidence and employ him in his schemes. At all events, she must take some risk; she was in a vortex of uncertainty, shaken by these untoward and startling adventures. So, with perhaps a lurking doubt in her heart, she accepted the Count’s suggestion.
He read her uncertainty. “You do not give me credit for an honest desire to serve you, Princess,” he observed. “It is, perhaps, after all, my own fault. But the event shall quickly prove my good faith. Give me but three words calling him to you, and I will engage that the Lieutenant shall be here within the hour.”
He put writing materials before her. “I fear he will not come without a written word from you,” he said quietly, as Ruperta hesitated.