“So, I owe this meeting to him,” he said, with a dubious shake of the head. “It is not natural. I doubt not there is a design beneath it. The man is as treacherous and pitiless as a leopard: I have had terrible proof of that. I do not trust him, even with the fear of Rollmar before him; he has gone too far ever to make his peace with me, even did his hate and lust for revenge allow him to seek it. Still, the present moment is ours, dearest. And that is infinitely more than, many times since we parted, I have dared to hope for.”
He held her in his arms, kissing her as though the delight of that moment might vanish in the next, and be gone forever. Then presently he told her in a few words of all that had befallen him since their separation. And, as he held her there, her heart beating on his, all her reserve and the lingering trammels of her coldness flung away as she listened, sometimes with a shudder, the sign of a fear which he knew was for him, he could find it in his heart to bless his dangers, with the vindictiveness and treachery, since they had worked for the stress which had opened this paradise to him.
“Oh, my love, if they had killed you I would have died, too,” she murmured, with her lips on his. “And I should have gone to my death contentedly in the thought that Heaven had given me, if only for one little hour, a lover so loyal, true and brave. Ludovic, my love, my poor starved heart thanks God for you.”
For an instant the word was at his lips which would have told her his secret, for, surely, the opportunity was apt. Perhaps it was a feeling that, in a higher sense, in that atmosphere so fully charged with tenderness and love, the cold shock of the announcement would be unfitting; perhaps, too, his sensitive, innate chivalry made him shrink from taking advantage of that supreme moment. The very certainty that the stroke must win held him back from making it. Anyhow it passed, and when rapture allowed him speech it was of a still more urgent matter, their escape. She told him it was for that she had risked the message.
“The Baron does not say so, but I know I am destined for Krell. And once there,” she shuddered, “I may say farewell to my hopes and to my liberty, except on terms which are now forever impossible.”
He understood, and signified it by a kiss.
“There is no reason, I hope,” he said, “why we should not push on again for Beroldstein. The longest and worst part of the way has been travelled, and the end of our journey is now not so far off. With a couple of hours’ start we could laugh at pursuit, and need not fear the high roads to-night.”
“Then let us go, dearest,” she urged.
He smiled at the eagerness he loved. “Everything is arranged,” he replied. “Ompertz is waiting with horses, and will ride with us. I fear, though, we must leave Countess Minna behind this time. But she is now safe from this fellow.”
A look of disappointment clouded Ruperta’s face. “Rollmar will visit my sins on poor Minna’s head.”