"The first bell will ring in a few minutes."
"I have one important letter to write before I dress."
"Then aunt and I will leave you. You will not be long? I am so afraid of your taking cold. Come, aunt."
"Nothing brings on rheumatism sooner than damp clothes," remarked Miss Primby sententiously, as she folded down a leaf of her novel, and tucked the volume under her arm.
Then the ladies went and Gerald was left alone. He looked a dozen years older than he had looked ten weeks previously. All the light and gladness had died out of his face; he had the air of a man who was weighed down by some trouble almost heavier than he could bear. "She is afraid of my taking cold," he said to himself, with a bitter smile as his wife closed the door. "Poor darling! if I were to take cold and have a fever and die, it would be the best thing that could happen either to her or me." He began to pace the room slowly, his hands behind him, and his eyes bent on the ground. "Nearly three months have passed since Karovsky's visit, and nothing has yet been done. Only two more weeks are left me. Coward that I am, to have kept putting off from day to day doing that which I ought to have done long ago. Even this very afternoon, when I reached Beaulieu, I had not the courage to go in and confront Von Rosenberg. My heart failed me, and I turned back. If I have begun one letter to him I have begun a dozen, only to burn or tear them up unfinished; but now there is no time for further delay. I will warn him that if he wishes to save his life he must leave here immediately, and seek some asylum where his enemies will be powerless to harm him. Shall I vaguely hint at some shadowy danger that impends over him? or shall I tell him in plain terms why and by whom the death sentence has been recorded against him? Shall I write to him anonymously, or shall I sign the letter with my name? Better tell him everything and put my name to the letter; he can then act on the information in whatever way he may deem best. In doing this, as Karovsky said, I shall be sealing my own doom. Well, better that, better anything than the only other alternative."
He halted by one of the windows, and stood gazing out at all the pleasant features of the landscape he had learned to know and love so well. "It seems hard to die so young, and with so much about me to make life happy," he sadly mused. "I think I could meet my fate on the battle-field without a murmur--but to be murdered in cold blood--to be the mark for some stealthy assassin! Poor Clara! poor darling! what will you do when I am gone?" He sighed deeply as he turned from the window. His eyes were dim with tears.
Presently he seated himself at the davenport, and drew pen and paper towards him. "No more delays; this very night the baron shall be told. But how shall I begin? in what terms shall I word my warning?" He sat and mused for a minute or two, biting the end of his pen as he did so. Then he dipped the pen into the inkstand and began to write: "My dear Baron, from information which has reached me, the accuracy of which I cannot doubt, I am grieved to have to inform you that your life is in great and immediate peril. You have been sentenced to death by the Chiefs of one of those Secret Societies of the existence of which you are doubtless aware. Your only chance of safety lies in immediate flight."
"What shall I say next?" asked Gerald of himself. "Shall I tell him that"----
But at this juncture the door was opened, and Mrs. Brooke came hurriedly into the room. "O Gerald, such terrible news!" she exclaimed, breathlessly.
Gerald turned his letter face downward on the blotting-pad. "Terrible news, Clara?" he said in a tone of studied indifference. "Has your aunt's spaniel over-eaten itself and"----