'About that, your excellency.' On which, to my astonishment, he covered his face with both his hands, and I saw the strong man's frame heave with ill-suppressed emotion. 'My God, I thank thee!' I heard him whisper; and if ever words came from the heart, those did. It was a minute or more before he dared to uncover his face, and then his eyes were moist and his features worked with emotion.
'You shall be rewarded!' he said unsteadily. 'Do not fear. And now take me to him--to her.'
I was in a maze of astonishment, but I had sense enough to understand the order. We had halted scarcely more than a hundred yards from my lady's quarters, and I led the way thither, comprehending little more than that something advantageous had happened to us. At the door he sprang from his horse, and taking me by the arm, as if he were afraid to suffer me out of his reach, he entered, pushing me before him.
The principal room was empty, and I judged my lady was out. I cried 'Marie! Marie!' softly; and then he and I stood listening. The sunshine poured in through the windows; the house was still with the stillness of afternoon. A bird in a cage in the corner pecked at the bars. Outside the bits jingled, and a horse pawed the road impatiently.
'Marie!' I cried. 'Marie!'
She came in at last through a door which led to the back of the house, and I stepped forward to speak to her. But the moment I saw her clearly, the words died on my lips. The pallor of her face, the disorder of her hair struck me dumb. I forgot our business, my companion, all. 'What is it?' was all I could say. 'What is the matter?'
'The child!' she cried, her dark eyes wild with anxiety. 'The child! It is lost! It is lost and gone. I cannot find it!'
'The child? Gone?' I answered, my voice rising almost to a shout, in my surprise. 'It is missing? Now?'
'I cannot find it,' she answered monotonously. 'I left it for a moment at the back there. It was playing on the grass. Now it is gone.'
I looked at. Count Leuchtenstein. He was staring at the girl, listening and watching, his brow contracted, his face pale. But I suppose that this sudden alarm, this momentary disappearance did not affect him, from whom the child had been so long absent, as it affected us; for his first words referred to the past.