"Wallenstein knew that I was favouring his party and his plans. He knew that I was willing to run terrible risks, as I have done, to forward his aims. But Wallenstein is a merchant, not a prince, a politician, not a man! The glamour became more transparent as time went on, and when I met you, Nigel, it was as if a wind from the hills swept over the plain, sweeping away the mists of morning and leaving everything clear and visible. For you showed yourself a man. You were not old and full of wiles like Father Lamormain or Maximilian. You were not like a mere courtier, as so many that I have known are, ready to agree to this and that and everything. You withstood me, thwarted me, outplayed me."
"Not always, Stephanie! There was a castle called the Wartburg!"
At this reminiscence the Archduchess flushed beneath her hood, which Nigel did not see. But he felt the sly pinch that accompanied her cry.
"Speak not of it! You took more away with you than you brought!" The hood was turned up towards him now, and he could look down into the depths of those translucent womanly eyes, brimming with the tenderness of first love, more magical than which is nothing of human tenderness.
"And I," said Nigel, "had never loved woman till I saw you in the Pastor's house at Magdeburg. It was as if a bee had stung me. I felt the sharp prick, told myself it was naught. But the poison worked. At Erfurt, when I knew it was you that had wept in the cathedral, and we stood by the bridge looking at the rivers and the stars and heard you speak of love, I recognised the pain again, I knew the longing that had set in, but also, knowing that you spoke not of me, again I brushed the thought aside. But never for long...." Something seemed to come into his mind.... He paused awhile, the Archduchess hanging upon his next words, savouring the essence of what had gone before....
"Who stole my despatches?"
"The same hand that restored them! Speak not of them!"
"I wondered if I had awakened what would have happened!"
"A woman's wit——"