“And is my litter at the door?”
“Good! So you say, Elphega,” added the count, clapping his hand to his head, “that there is a love-affair between Ordener Guldenlew and Schumacker’s daughter?”
“A very serious one, I assure you,” replied the countess, with a smile of anger and contempt.
“Who would ever have imagined it? And yet I tell you that I suspected it.”
“And so did I,” said the countess. “This is a trick played upon us by that confounded Levin.”
“Old scamp of a Mecklenburger!” muttered the chancellor; “never fear, I’ll recommend you to Arensdorf. If I could only succeed in disgracing him! Ah! see here, Elphega, I have an inspiration.”
“What is it?”
“You know that the persons whom we are to try at Munkholm Castle are six in number,—Schumacker, whom I hope I shall have no further cause to fear, to-morrow, at this hour; the colossal mountaineer, our false Hans of Iceland, who has sworn to sustain his character to the end, in the hope that Musdœmon, from whom he has already received large sums of money, will help him to escape,—that Musdœmon really has the most devilish ideas! The other four prisoners are the three rebel chiefs, and a certain unknown character, who stumbled, no one knows how, into the midst of the assembly at Apsyl-Corh, and whom Musdœmon’s precautions have thrown into our hands. Musdœmon thinks that the fellow is a spy of Levin de Knud. And indeed, when brought here a prisoner, his first words were to ask for the general; and when he learned of the Mecklenburger’s absence, he seemed dumfounded. Moreover, he has refused to answer any of Musdœmon’s questions.”
“My dear lord,” interrupted the countess, “why have you not questioned him yourself?”