'This child, woman?' he said in his deep voice, which shook despite all his efforts. 'When you found it, it had a chain round its neck?'
But Marie was so wrapped up in her sudden loss that she answered him without thought, listening the while. 'Yes,' she said mechanically, 'it had.'
'Where did you find it, then--the child?' he asked eagerly.
'In the forest by Vach,' she replied, in the same indifferent tone.
'Was it alone?'
'It was with a dead woman,' she answered. She was listening still, with a strained face--listening for the pattering of the little feet, the shrill music of the piping voice. Only half of her mind was with us. Her hands opened and closed continually with anxiety; she held her head on one side, her ear to the door. When the Count went to put another question, she turned upon him so fiercely, I hardly knew her. 'Hush!' she said, 'will you? They are here, but they have not found him. They have not found him!' And she was right; though I, whose ears were not sharpened by love, did not discern this until two men, who had been left at home with her, and who had been out to search, came in empty-handed and with scared looks. They had hunted on all sides and found no trace of the child, and, certain that it could not have strayed far itself, pronounced positively that it had been kidnapped.
Marie at that burst into weeping so pitiful, that I was glad to send the men out, bidding them make a larger circuit and inquire in the camp. When they were gone, I turned to Count Leuchtenstein to see how he took it. I found him leaning against the wall, his face grave, dark, and thoughtful.
'There seems a fatality in it!' he muttered, meeting my eyes, but speaking to himself. 'That it should be lost again--at this moment! Yet, God's will be done. He who sent the chain to my hands can still take care of the child.'
He paused a moment in deep thought, and then, advancing to Marie Wort, who had thrown herself into a chair and was sobbing passionately with her face on the table, he touched her on the shoulder.
'Good girl!' he said kindly. 'Good girl! But doubtless the child is safe. Before night it will be found.'