She looked troubled. “I cannot tell. I am dead, practically to the world. You are the only one, except these villains here, who know that I am alive. And so my life, being nothing in the world, hangs by a thread which any moment may be snipped.”
“Fräulein, you must not despair. I will save you or give my life for you.”
“Oh!” she cried miserably. “Why have you come? I had given up all hope. I was resigned to my fate. Now the sight of you, of a friend, has made me feel I cannot die. And yet there is no escape. These wretches are pitiless, and even if they were not, what are they but the creatures of him who never spares? The very air of this vile place is death. I had heard of the Hostel of St. Tranquillin in my happy days, but little thought I should spend my last hours here.”
She was weeping in a piteous state of distress. I strove, in spite of natural misgivings, to comfort her, bidding her hope for a speedy escape.
“Ah, it is impossible!” she said when I had told her of the secret way. “If we should escape it would be but for a few hours which would bring us certain death. And yet to stay here may be worse than death.”
She ran again to the door, listened, and returned.
“Shall I tell you,” she said, “why I, who am mourned as dead, am permitted to live—if only for a little?”
“The Princess’s marriage——”
“Ah, you know of that! Yes; that fatal escapade. We little thought how terrible its consequences were to be, how swiftly the Jaguar was to strike. He, Rallenstein, naturally determined on my death, but was shrewd enough to know that my father is powerful, so he would strike cunningly. I was to die two deaths, the first a false one, so that the Chancellor might see how my relations accepted it; and when he should have nothing to fear from them, then I, already dead to the world, was to die in reality, like poor Von Orsova. That is why I am brought here. Probably Rallenstein already believes me dead, but this man, Furello——”
“Ah!” I could guess the story now. “He is in love with you?”